Author: Graham Taylor

Dr. Graham Taylor received his Doctorate in Psychology from The American School of Professional Psychology after completing his graduate work in Social Work at the University of Hawaii. He resides in Honolulu where he maintains a private practice and devotes himself to assisting doctoral students studying for the EPPP.

From Internship to Licensure

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If you’re an aspiring psychologist who has finished your internship yet remains unclear what to do next, you’re not alone.

Learning to navigate the bumpy road from internship to postdoc to licensure is something that many people find challenging. In an article for the American Psychological Association, Tori DeAngelis’ described summed up the basic difficulty:

“Grad school is no easy street, but it is a fairly comprehensible and predictable process, at least until you finish your internship. From postdoc to license, though, the path is less clear: There is no system to guide you, and the rules are complex and varied. Your state’s licensing procedures might bewilder you, for example. Or your postdoctoral training might not offer the experience you need for licensure.”

Thankfully, guidance is available for this confusing process. To provide some guideposts for would-be psychologists, DeAngelis offers 11 steps to help simplify what could otherwise be a confusing road. His article ‘After the Internship‘ is a must-read for anyone who is approaching the end of their internship.


Further Reading

Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution: Getting off to a good start with EPPP test prep in 2016

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If you’re studying for the EPPP, chances are one of your resolutions for this coming year has to do with EPPP test prep. New Year’s resolutions, however, are notorious for being forgotten or failed. And since 2016 is the year you will sit the exam, being diligent in EPPP test prep is one resolution that cannot be broken.

In reflecting on the reasons behind New Year’s resolution failure, I have come up with ways to help you keep your resolution of EPPP test prep success. Continue reading →

The Five Most Common Pitfalls of Holiday Studying

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The holiday season is officially here. Whether you are party planning, Christmas shopping, or preparing to entertain that extended family you forgot you had, the holidays are meant to be a time of relaxation and joy. But the holidays can also be a time of significant stress – especially if you are preparing for the EPPP.

Last year we posted a three part series, How to Continue EPPP Study over the Holidays, where we touched on how to maintain balance, stay productive and enjoy the holidays. We posed the question; is it possible to stay productive in your EPPP studies and enjoy time with family during the busy holiday season?

The answer to this question is yes. However, in order to make the most of the holiday season and continue progressing with your EPPP studies, it is important to beware of the five most common pitfalls to holiday studying.

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How your Practice Determines your Success in Your EPPP Test Prep

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Many people have repeated the phrase “practice makes perfect” so much that they end up neglecting the how and the what of practice. This leaves them trudging on with unstructured practicing while reassuring themselves that “practice makes perfect.”

Does practice make perfect? Perhaps it is more accurate to say that practice makes permanent.

Because of a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, when we practice an action or skill repeatedly in a way focused towards improvement, this leads to habituation. Through practice, our brains become conditioned to perform an action more adequately, and success becomes habitual.

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Exercise and Passing the EPPP: Why you Should Include Exercise in your EPPP Study Schedule

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In our last post, ‘How to prepare for the EPPP when You’re Not Feeling Motivated’, we gave you some tips to conquer tiredness, distractions, and lack of confidence. We also touched on the importance of resting your mind and body in the midst tackling your day of study.

Now that you’re feeling motivated to study, everything revolves around your EPPP study schedule. Studying is at the top of your to-do list. Perhaps it’s the only thing on your to-do list. Forget laundry, forget dishes, skip the shower, skip the gym, you need to use every ounce of your time in preparation for passing the EPPP, right?

Wrong.

Studying for a test like the EPPP takes time management. And when our schedules get full, the things that are less important to us get put lower on the priority list. You have probably heard yourself say many times “I don’t have time for that.” For many people who decide to stringently prioritize, the first routine to get sacrificed is exercise.

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Corporations Hire Focus Experts

Posted on in Brain and memory, Mindfulness, Psychology News by Graham TaylorLeave a Comment

Online distractions are costing the United States millions of dollars a year in lost productivity, according to some estimates. That’s why corporations are now hiring experts to help train office workers how to stay focused.

Google is among the numerous organizations hiring experts to train offer seminars in attention.

Chade-Meng Tan, a Google engineer who began teaching employees about focus in 2007, helps workers learn self-mastery over unhelpful mental habits. (See the video ‘Meng on Mindfulness.’) For example, when they find their mind wandering while reading, they are encouraged to practice mindfulness in bringing their attention back.

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Preserving Focus in an Age of Distractions

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Researchers are still uncovering the implications of a study suggesting that memory and learning are impaired by over-use of technologies like the internet, TV, social media and computer games.

The landmark study, conducted by Stanford researchers in 2009, overturned the standard assumption that the internet sharpened cognitive abilities and improved users’ ability to multi-task.

Researchers discovered that those who engaged in regularly media-multitasking scored worse than the control group in the ability to focus on and remember information. It was much harder for these people to distinguish important information from trivia. Ironically, media-multitaskers scored worse than the control group in multitasking itself.

“They couldn’t help thinking about the task they weren’t doing,” said Eyal Ophir, one of the authors of the study. “The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can’t keep things separate in their minds.”

The results of this study have been confirmed in a myriad of subsequent research, with profound implications for those intent on staying focused in college and in the office. In short, the more we allow our brains to be distracted from the task at hand, the more we are literally weakening the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that controls our executive functions like concentrating, planning, and synthesizing.

Focus expert Daniel Goleman explains that “Attention works much like a muscle—use it poorly and it can wither; work it well and it grows.”

Further Reading

 

Remembering Oliver Sacks

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Oliver Sacks died last month, following an amazing career as a neuroscientist and author.

More than a million copies of Dr. Sacks’ books are in print in the United States, in addition to being translated into over 25 languages and made into feature movies. His vivid accounts of his neurological patients had an incalculable impact on the public’s understanding of the brain.

The 82-year old author died at his Manhattan home following a battle with cancer, leaving behind thirteen books and countless articles, which opened up the complex and daunting world of neuroscience to ordinary people.

Dr. Sacks was the embodiment of focus, a theme we explore quite a bit at TSM. “I am very tenacious, for better or worse,” he wrote in A Leg to Stand On. “If my attention is engaged, I cannot disengage it. This may be a great strength, or weakness. It makes me an investigator. It makes me an obsessional.”

How to Succeed at the EPPP Without Ruining Your Life

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For many would-be psychologists, the experience of studying to pass the EPPP is as near to being tortured as anything they’ve ever experienced.

If that sounds familiar, and if your EPPP exam preparation is making you miserable, ruining your life and alienating you from those you love, then you should periodically run through the following checklist. Addressing the 10 items in this list could make the difference between an EPPP study experience that is enriching and rewarding vs. one that ruins your life.
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