Dr. Cheng opens practice

Dr. Yun Cheng, Ph.D. is a psychologist who recently moved her practice to Hot Springs County and has set up her office at Gottsche.

Dr. Cheng provides high-quality, state-of-the-art, private and confidential psychological services. With over 20 years of experience, Dr. Cheng provides psychological testing and treatment services for all ages and for a wide range of issues, including academic performance and developmental issues, neuropsychological, disability and mental health evaluations and aging-related issues. 

Dr. Cheng first started down the path of her career as a psychologist as a student in Taiwan. She started college in 1986 and at the time in her country psychology was a new field. Her grandfather played an influential role and encouraged her to go for it. Being a woman pursuing higher education, it was unusual for women to have such a position in the medical field. Dr. Cheng said, "I am really fascinated by how our brain works and how our mind can impact so many parts of our body, including physical health. At the time, I was really fascinated by people with psychosis."

After college, in order to get a doctoral degree, Dr. Cheng left Taiwan in 1990 and came to New York City to attend Columbia University, where she received her master's degree. Later, at NYU, she finished her doctoral program there. Her first work experience was at the New York State Psychiatric Hospital.

Cheng said, "It was quite an experience. I am really blessed." 

Dr. Cheng explained her passion for her career and said, "I have seen throughout my different positions a lot of people or families or individuals in need. And that they are not really able to get appropriate care or accurate diagnosis. I am really passionate about making really accurate assessments. The majority of my practice focuses on evaluations and assessments such as dementia, traumatic brain injuries, learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, any of those. A lot of kids were wrongly diagnosed with behavioral disorders and not with depression or anxiety because they were not understood. I see a lot of those situations and it makes me really sad, that the kids end up thinking they are 'bad'. That is my passion, that's why I continue to do this. I am really curious and passionate about understanding the human brain and how it works."

Part of her practice is counseling and therapy but she prefers to do "short-term problem solving solution-focused counseling instead of going on through years and years of talking about the same thing every week kind of counseling." Dr. Cheng seeks to identify an area of struggle or neurological deficit and come up with a treatment plan, learn skills and use them and get the patient back to their previous functioning self as best as they can. "That's the focus of my treatment." 

Dr. Cheng has opened her practice at the Gottsche Center and wants to be in a location patients can easily access. Dr. Cheng said she is looking forward to building with the community and the medical care providers and the hospital administration.