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Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Melinda Kulish, Ph.D., and her husband, Robert Sodergren, M.B.A., have officially opened the doors of New England’s only fully integrated, private neuropsychological testing clinic in Cambridge, MA. Joined by Clinical Neuropsychologist, Brian Becker, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Meghan Mitchell, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, Elizabeth Vinton, Psy.D., and Clinical Psychologist, Leora Bernstein, Ph.D., Integrated Assessment Services (IAS) will provide the most comprehensive, integrated and accessible testing evaluations available, answering questions and alleviating the need for clients to seek multiple sources and practitioners for answers.
Dr. Kulish has been a practicing psychologist in the Cambridge area for 16 years. Her practice, located only a few blocks from the new clinic, focuses on adult and adolescent psychotherapy and has offered both psychological and neuropsychological testing services since 2001.
“Demand for testing services in our practice had gradually increased in recent years,” says Dr. Kulish, president and founder of IAS. “Recognizing the need for much deeper integration of psychological and neuropsychological testing, we decided it was time to start a clinic that offers evaluations both separately or combined into a comprehensive assessment.
“Too often neuropsychological evaluations are either devoid of, or only minimally inclusive of the subtle emotional factors of clients,” adds Kulish. “Diagnosing and treating an adult or child suffering from issues like anxiety, post-traumatic stress, a learning disorder, or even a head injury, requires in-depth psychological testing besides neuropsychological testing. Looking through multiple lenses, with psychologists and neuropsychologists communicating and combining their inisghts into a complete report, allows us to understand all of the complexities and nuances of a person.
“For instance, it is often unclear if anxious patients have ADHD because anxiety is also associated with profound disruptions in attention. If the anxiety isn’t immediately clear or if patients are reticent to acknowledge it, it can easily be overlooked. In order to determine the underlying causes, we look at both cognitive (memory, attention, language, visuospatial functioning, general cognitive abilities, etc.) and emotional (depression, anxiety and other psychiatric diagnoses) domains, and we test both areas with as thorough an evaluation as possible. It takes a unique skillset to do this - only highly trained and very intuitive testers who are committed to a thorough assessment can fully integrate both sides. We have powerful tools to help us assess clients and at IAS (iasboston.net), we take neither aspect of testing lightly.”
“There was definitely a huge gap in the market. We realized we’re probably the only ones with the right people and the right expertise to fill it so we started IAS,” says co-founder Sodergren, M.B.A, who brings his extensive operational and managerial experience to IAS as the chief operating officer.
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