What I Learned About Psychology From a Cow, Part 2
In a recent post, I shared four lessons derived from my childhood on a dairy farm. Today I will share several more cow stories and the lessons I learned about psychology.
CONTINUEMay is Mental Health Awareness Month
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Lamb Behavioral Health Center purposely does not recognize specific months or causes, but we’ll make an exception for Mental Health Awareness! As you would expect, this topic is dear to my heart as it is the chosen profession for everyone at LBHC.
CONTINUEThe 5-Ingredient Recipe for Beating Procrastination
I am not alone in falling victim to procrastination. People commonly put off doing things. While it can be harmless, this tendency can become an issue quickly. In a previous post, we discussed the reasons for procrastination. In today’s blog post, I share a few interventions to put your procrastination habit in check.
CONTINUEWhat I Learned about Psychology from a Cow, Part 1
What does a cow know about psychology? Apparently, a lot. I have learned many lessons from my dealings with cows in my youth. I grew up on a small dairy farm in Southwest Missouri, in a hilly region known as the Ozarks. The farm was approximately 20 miles from the nearest town, which got its first stop light when I was a senior in high school. To this day, the county I grew up in has more cows (74,000) than people (12,300).
CONTINUESkills Transfer: Taking Skills from Therapy to Daily Life
How often do you know what to do in a situation, but you don’t do it? Knowing what you should do and actually doing it are two different things. One of my past supervisors described this as the difference between “knowing knowledge” and “doing knowledge.” Just like music or athletic skills, patients must go through a process to use therapy skills in daily life. Therapists use the term skills transfer to describe the learning process from knowing to doing.
CONTINUEShoot for the STAAR’s! Tips for Success
It is STAAR testing season! Parents, if your child’s therapy appointment falls on a testing day, please call the office in advance to reschedule. If you aren’t sure when your child is testing, reach out to the school. They should have this information.
CONTINUEProcrastination: Why Do We Wait?
I have thought repeatedly about writing a post about procrastination…but I kept putting it off! We all deal with procrastination to some extent. People can vilify, tolerate, or celebrate this tendency. The appealing nature of procrastination is reflected in common sayings such as “hard work pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.” As Mark Twain famously said, “never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.”
CONTINUEHow to Create Healthy Boundaries
Psychology is not plagued by social stigmas as much as in the past. This is mostly a positive change. One of the negative effects of this change, however, is inaccurate understanding of psychological terminology as it seeps into the general culture. One such term our culture commonly misunderstands is the concept of boundaries.
CONTINUEEvaluations in the School vs Private Practice
Because I completed my PhD in a school psychology program, I received comprehensive training in completing psychological evaluations within the schools by leading authorities in the field. In my career, I have done assessments in a children’s hospital, public schools, and this clinic. I also trained other clinicians on how to conduct psychological evaluations when I worked at Sam Houston State University.
CONTINUEBehavioral Activation: Improving Mood Through Positive Activities
Have you ever said you would start something after you felt like it, but then the motivation never came? The truth of the matter is that waiting for motivation before acting often leaves us waiting…and waiting. Alternatively, if we start acting, motivation tends to follow. Motivation works more by pushing an action from behind rather than leading the action from the front. This is what the process of behavioral activation feels like.
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