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Marketing the Disease, Selling the Medication

From the category Five Minute Articles For Your Consideration

The big business of drug revenue is constantly being fed by new and inventive ways of creating markets for drugs to affect.  This inventive marketing strategy was developed by SmithKline (today known as GlaxoSmithKline), a British pharmaceutical company, to market their depression drug Paxil in 1991.  It has since been adopted by many other pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer in marketing Viagra, and Merck in marketing Zostavax, their drug for Shingles.  It’s a very effective strategy, contributing to over 4 billion total prescriptions being written in 2012 and drug spending topping $320 billion. Continue Reading

Apr 16th, 20133 comments

Self-reflection

From the category Concepts In Motion

A defining differentiation between us and all other living things on this planet is our extraordinary ability for self-reflection. This  trait allows us to look at ourselves and evaluate our emotional, physical, and metaphysical states. In its less obvious form, self-reflection strengthens our conscience by helping us identify and enforce our own moral awareness. In its more obvious form, it strengthens our ego by helping us define who we are and what we desire. Self-reflection, however, is not infallible. In his drawing, Hand With Reflecting Sphere, M.C. Escher,  Continue Reading

Mar 7th, 20130 comments

A Call to Cultural Leadership

From the category Five Minute Articles For Your Consideration

Last year there were approximately 12,000 gun related homicides in the United States.  By now we’ve heard so many stories of senseless drive by shootings, office shootings, and domestic violence that we’ve become numb to their reports.  The grim ones hold our attention and then slowly fade away.  Aurora and Sandy Hook were different.  They held our attention longer and reminded us that Columbine wasn’t an isolated incident.  Continue Reading

Feb 12th, 20130 comments

Stress Linked to Aging Chromosomes

From the category Fast Facts

New research shows that the length of the protective end buffers of our chromosomes (like the plastic tips on shoelaces), called telomeres, are linked to chronic stress and depression.  A study in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry (2012) concluded that subjects who reported chronic stress in their lives had significantly shorter telomeres than those who reported normal stress.  Continue Reading

Mar 15th, 20130 comments

We Are Not Our Labels

From the category Concepts In Motion

Labels are useful in the mental health field but we often blur the line between a label and a “condition”. When the lines get blurred we become identified by our label. For some the label is ADHD, for others it’s bi-polar disorder and for the majority of people who experience normal bouts of sadness and pessimism it’s depression. Rene Magritte, the French painter, illustrates the struggle between meaning and language in his painting “This Is Not A Pipe.” Continue Reading

Mar 7th, 20132 comments

Our Elusive Memory

From the category Fast Facts

Greg Markus, from the University of Michigan, conducted a ten year study by asking close to 900 parents and their children their points of view on issues like gender equality, marijuana legislation and civil rights. A decade later he asked them the same questions again. Unanimously, they wrote down that their current beliefs were consistent with what they believed ten years prior, even when they weren’t. In other words, the subjects rewrote their history using the brush of their present-day beliefs to paint over any previous contradictions. Continue Reading

Mar 1st, 20130 comments

Self Esteem: Losing it, Finding it, and Keeping it

From the category Five Minute Articles For Your Consideration

Self esteem does not exist in the external world; it is purely a construct of the mind.  We cannot see self esteem, only evidence of it.  It is a completely subjective and internal experience.  In nature you do not see animals with self esteem issues.  If a dog doesn’t catch a ball there is no self-recrimination.  That judgment is reserved solely for humans.  A dog doesn’t tell itself that it is a bad fetcher.  Dogs just live to fetch another day.  We, on the other hand, come up with all sorts of stories about how good or bad we are, all of which affect our self esteem. Continue Reading

Feb 12th, 20130 comments

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  • Larry Laveman LCSW, BCD
    Solana Beach, CA

    Email: larry@larrylaveman.com
    Phone: (858) 755-0746

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