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Member Profile
Karen Spangenberg Postal, PhD, ABPP-CN is a Clinical Neuropsychologist
What is a clinical neuropsychologist?
A clinical neuropsychologist is a psychologist who specializes in brain behavior relationships. Through testing, we determine how each part of the brain is working and use that information to figure out barriers to everyday life. I see children with school problems, adults with attention or memory problems and elderly people or others who have signs of early Alzheimer's or dementia.
What is your area of specialty?
My research area was in Alzheimer's and related dementias. About 50 percent of my practice is adults with various neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's, and 50 percent children with learning disabilities.
Straight or winding path to your current position?
Relatively straight. I got my PhD in clinical psychology. During my internship year, I had a rotation in neuropsychology and fell in love with the process. With clinical psychology, you gather information and develop relationships over a long period of time. With neuropsych, your job is to get as much information as possible in a short of period of time. You do all these tests, gather a ton of data, and you lay it all out in front of you and it's like a puzzle to be solved. I just loved it, so at that point I decided to specialize in this area.
Did you have any mentors?
Yes, I had a very nice mentor named Dr. Linda Vincent. She was the professor who taught me about neuropsychology. She didn't just stop at writing letters of recommendation for me; she personally called around to all the various programs I was looking at. It was wonderful to have someone go to bat like that for me and really helped my career.
What is it you like most about your job?
I like when people come in to me worried and not understanding why they can't solve a problem in their life, whether it's doing better in school or at work. I love going through the assessment process and being able to figure out how to help them jump over those barriers. It's very satisfying to me.
Are there frustrations?
Yes! One of the biggest frustrations is that people don't understand the testing process itself and are worried about it. For example, people who are being tested for Alzheimer's are very worried about what the testing will be like, and may even be reluctant to come in. But once they're here, and they see what the testing is all about, they realize that it's not something to be concerned about. For children too, it's just overcoming that intimidation factor, getting them in the door so they can see that it's a lot of games and puzzles and not scary at all.
Any words of wisdom about confronting our fears about memory loss?
There's an enormous amount of anxiety out there about memory problems in our age group, not just about our parents or elderly relatives. People are frightened. I give talks all the time about early identification and how you can tell the difference between dementia and normal memory loss. People leave relieved that their memory problems are completely normal. Early identification is the key. You can't go back in time and retrieve information. If you think your parents or someone you know may be showing signs of memory loss, get them in for testing.
Other than work, what's your favorite way of spending time?
I spend a lot of time volunteering for the Massachusetts State Psychology Association, and I am actually president elect this year. This past November, I ran the New York City Marathon and trained for that for most of the year. And my husband is going to kill me, because now I'm working on a book about how you can use advances in neuroscience to help your children do better in school.
Any family, since you don't have enough to do?
Yes, I have two boys: Andrew, who is 5 and Robbie who is 3 ½, and I just think they are the cutest kids in the world. My husband Bill is an ENT. We are huge ski fans, and are very happy because we just got Robbie skiing downhill by himself this past weekend.
What attracted you to Great Women to Know?
I love the idea of being able to meet other professional women in the community. For me, I tend to meet people through work and school, but there is this whole interesting universe of women out there that you never get to meet and I thought that would be really nice.