By: Larry F. Waldman, Ph.D., ABPP Psychologist The reasons for the current opioid epidemic are due to the following, largely unspoken, reasons: Physicians don’t have the time (and training) to effectively deal with their patients’ pain. Insurance companies prefer the quick, simpler treatment through medication over other longer, more complex non-medical interventions. Our nation’s health insurance and drug companies [...]
When we enter a grocery store or our primary care physician’s office we generally know what kind of service we will receive. For most of us this is not the case when we begin treatment with a mental health provider. Over my 45-+ year career I met many frustrated clients who complained that their previous mental health practitioner failed [...]
By Larry F. Waldman, PhD, ABPP Many parents struggle with conversing with their adolescent. Attempts at communication often result in yelling, slamming doors, feelings of resentment, and a sense of hopelessness that issues can be resolved. Below are nine strategies to enhance communication with your teen. 1. Praise Positive Behavior Usually when a parent approaches their teen it is to [...]
By Larry F. Waldman, PhD, ABPP Parents regularly tell their children to “study hard” so they can get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job, and be successful. While children are encouraged to study, do they truly know what they should do? Research on effective studying generally recommends the following: 1) Organize the material conceptually rather [...]
By Larry F. Waldman, Ph.D., Phoenix-based psychologist Depression and anxiety are, by far, the most common mental health problems. Nearly 20% of the U.S. population struggles with or will struggle with one or both of these problems. The most common treatment today for these issues is medication — typically prescribed by the primary care physician (not a psychiatrist). This [...]
Schools today are required to provide more services than ever before. For example, many schools across the nation offer a free hot breakfast and lunch to students. Some schools serve as a community mental health center and some even supply medical services to the neighborhood. One service I believe schools can and should provide is parenting training. Most parents [...]
The parent-teacher conference can be an efficient tool to communicate with your child’s teacher. Below are a few tips on how to make that meeting more productive: 1) Show up: My wife, now retired from teaching fourth grade for 28 years, often said that the parents with whom she most needed to talk rarely scheduled a conference. Children perform [...]
Jason, 14 is like most male adolescents. He is into video games, hockey, and, of course, hanging with his friends. If you ask him the classic question adults love to ask teens, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jason will reply, “I don’t know—maybe a lawyer or an engineer.” Like many of his peers, Jason [...]
This scandal hits many folk’s “hot button”: The rich keep getting richer; the discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots continues to deepen; the law is applied differently to the super rich; and, of course, the blatant unfairness that a deserving student will be supplanted by someone who bribed their way in. I get it. I submit, though, that [...]
I have been working with children and their parents for 40 years. I began my career as a staff member for a boys’ home in the late 1960’s, taught “emotionally handicapped” teens in 1971 and 1972, served as a school psychologist for the Scottsdale (Arizona) School District from 1973 to 1979, and have since conducted a private clinical psychology [...]
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