ABOUT DR. DOUG
Douglas R. Polster, PhD
Dr. Doug is originally from New Jersey and earned his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he played on and captained the men's varsity basketball team. He completed his PhD in clinical psychology, with an emphasis in sports psychology, at Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Fort Lauderdale, FL. His research activity and dissertation at NSU focused on return-to-play following sport-related concussion where he developed critical new protocols for post-concussion return-to-play. While in graduate school, he worked as a sports psychologist for the NSU woman’s basketball team and was an adjunct professor at Broward College. He completed his clinical internship at the Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL where he focused on successful recovery from illness and injury. Following graduation, Dr. Doug completed a two-year Steve Tisch sponsored post-doctoral fellowship in sports neuropsychology at the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program. While on fellowship, he specialized in concussion management and established a new treatment for post-concussion syndrome. He also helped develop a model for assisting athletes with recovery from injury utilizing a combination of sports psychology and exercise rehabilitation.
Dr. Doug is noted for motivational presentations on sports psychology, concussion management, performance improvement, and stress management and has presented his research at multiple national conferences. He has provided educational seminars for national organizations including Orange Theory Fitness, UPS, and UCLA, and has successfully worked with professional, Division-I, and high school athletes to improve, enhance, and elevate their performance to the next level. His clients include athletes from the Seattle Seahawks, Greenbay Packers, UCLA, and Johns Hopkins. Dr. Doug works with athletes to identify what drives them to succeed and assists them in leveraging their innate abilities to ensure the best results. His unique methods combine traditional sports psychology with “live” action where he puts athlete’s skills to test on their own turf, court, bike, pool…
Dr. Doug also provides expert neurocognitive evaluations designed to assess strengths and weaknesses in order to help individuals better understand how to leverage their strengths. He offers baseline and post-injury concussion evaluation, psychoeducational testing, and AD/HD and learning disability evaluations, as well as screening for memory problems. Each evaluation is tailored to the individual to provide the most accurate results and contains personalized recommendations.
Dr. Doug lives in Los Angeles, CA and provides in-person and phone based services. He also has a faculty appointment at UCLA as a Clinical Instructor in the David Geffen School of Medicine, where he works in the Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Concussion Clinic. In his free time, Dr. Doug serves as a director of an LA-based social+fitness group and enjoys golfing and surfing.