Dr. Carol L. Oster is a licensed clinical psychologist in full-time private practice with Drs. Gault, Fishbein, and Associates. She received her undergraduate degree in education from the University of Illinois, and completed her masters and doctoral training in Clinical Psychology at Forest Institute of Professional Psychology.
Dr. Oster is our chief diagnostician. Her clinical practice focuses on psychological and psycho-educational testing and cognitive-behavioral therapy, supervision, and consultation. She works with children, adolescents, and adults, helping them improve their academic and work performance, personal and professional growth, ability to cope with life transitions, and ability to manage anxiety and mood.
The number one reason for psychological or psycho-educational testing is to help a person understand themselves or their child better, usually to help them succeed in school. Testing can help identify academic areas in need of reinforcement; the person's strengths, talents, and best learning methods; emotional factors that help or hinder learning; what it is that affects the person's motivation, ability to work well with others, and so on. It can identify or confirm ADHD and learning disabilities as well as "emotional" problems such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and so forth.
Testing helps parents plan for their child's academic future. Because it identifies areas of talent and strength, it helps the young adult student make more informed choices about their academic and career paths. Testing is required for some accommodations at school or if a student is seeking accommodations on tests such as the ACT or SAT. It can help therapy be more targeted and efficient, and can help track progress in therapy, provide parents with insight into how best to parent their unique child, and even suggest ways to help the teen become a better driver!
Dr. Oster also provides testing for adults:
Career assessment identifies the adult's work style, interests, and strengths, and provide information that can increase work and family satisfaction and success.
Executive "360° Assessment" identifies management style, personal and professional strengths and challenges, cognitive, emotional and behavioral factors affecting personal and professional success and satisfaction, career path planning, and career-family integration.
Personal growth assessments function much like executive assessments, with a focus on the person's relationships with others and with self.
Pre-marital assessment helps a couple understand their styles of relating to each other and their families, identify the things they each value, anticipate and avoid areas of conflict, and make sure that important topics are discussed and understood before they get married. It helps them understand what it takes to be partners in a marriage, and assesses each partner's readiness for commitment. Pre-marital assessment lets partners enter marriage with an empathic understanding of each other, reducing early marital conflict and increasing the couple's ability to successfully problem-solve.
Most people find psychological testing quite interesting and fun, and are surprised at how much it can help them to understand themselves and make better plans for the future.
Dr. Oster's primary theoretical orientation is cognitive-behavioral. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on the relationships between thoughts, feelings, and actions, as well as the unique situations in which clients are creating their lives. Dr. Oster helps clients identify patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that keep them from being as happy and successful as they want to be, to safely try out new behaviors, to develop new skills, to communicate more effectively, to solve problems more efficiently, and to experiment with new attitudes. In her work with clients, she helps them create healthier, more satisfying lives.
Dr. Oster has taught psychological assessment and testing, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and human development for more than twenty years, serving on the faculty of the Adler School of Professional Psychology and the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (Now Argosy University, Chicago). She has published a number of articles and chapters on parenting and on cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Dr. Oster authors a newsletter for clients and colleagues, Recommendations for Better Living. Published online every two to three weeks, Recommendations provides simple, practical suggestions for living a more satisfying, successful life. It can be found online at Dr. Oster's website at http://www.osterpro.homestead.com/recommendations.html.