Marianne McClain, MS, PsyD

My approach to care is per­son-cen­tered; each patient is a unique indi­vid­ual who deserves a provider who will take the time to learn about their spe­cif­ic needs and offer sup­ports to meet those indi­vid­ual needs. As a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist, my focus is on under­stand­ing brain-behav­ior rela­tion­ships. So in oth­er words, exam­in­ing the inter­sec­tion between what’s going on in the brain and the way we think, feel, and act in a way that is mean­ing­ful for the peo­ple involved. For indi­vid­u­als who have a con­di­tion that impacts their think­ing, or who may have had an injury to their brain, like a con­cus­sion or a stroke, a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion can help deter­mine prog­no­sis, mon­i­tor progress in recov­ery, and/​or iden­ti­fy tar­get­ed areas to focus on in treat­ment mov­ing for­ward. For old­er indi­vid­u­als who are start­ing to notice changes in their think­ing (e.g., dif­fi­cul­ty remem­ber­ing infor­ma­tion day-to-day or nav­i­gat­ing famil­iar places), but are uncer­tain whether these are nor­mal changes asso­ci­at­ed with healthy aging, an eval­u­a­tion such as this can help to clar­i­fy diag­no­sis. The aspect of this work that inspires me the most is the abil­i­ty to look at the per­son as a whole, all of the dif­fer­ent com­po­nents that impact what is hap­pen­ing with their mood, behav­ior, or changes in think­ing to real­ly under­stand how these pieces inter­act and fit togeth­er to shed light on what might be going on. This includes not just a focus on where indi­vid­u­als strug­gle, but also striv­ing to under­stand what works, areas where they are doing well, so we can help access those strengths to ensure that treat­ment is as suc­cess­ful as pos­si­ble. Over­all, my goal is to iden­ti­fy tar­get­ed areas to guide effec­tive treat­ment, pro­vide resources to sup­port indi­vid­u­als and their fam­i­ly, and assist in opti­miz­ing over­all func­tion­ing and qual­i­ty of life.