Dr. Howard is a licensed psychologist (PSY33706). She seeks to help adults and couples challenged by anxiety, addiction, trauma, and relationship distress. She applies CBT, ACT, and mindfulness-based approaches in an integrative, compassionate, individualized manner, attuning to each client’s unique needs for healing.
Dr. Howard earned her Psy.D. from the Wright Institute, in Berkeley, CA, and completed her predoctoral internship at VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System, treating Veterans with co-occurring PTSD, addiction, and chronic pain challenges. As a doctoral student, Dr. Howard completed clinical rotations in psycho-diagnostic assessment and psychotherapy with adults in the areas of trauma, crisis, suicide, grief, anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders. She has worked in a range of treatment settings, including community mental health, intensive outpatient, inpatient, and residential treatment. She has formal training and experience in mindfulness-based, emotion-focused, relational/psychodynamic, and other evidence-based psychotherapy approaches, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Cognitive Processing therapy (CPT). Dr. Howard’s dissertation research explored cognitive appraisal processes, stress physiology, and intervention approaches for optimizing stress responses when engaged in difficult conversations.
Prior to graduate school, Dr. Howard earned her B.A. in Studio Art from UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture. She subsequently worked as a visual artist, certified massage therapist, and outdoor recreational therapy guide for teens and adults. Dr. Howard’s work in each of these fields has been fueled by her strong interest in mindfulness and in understanding wellbeing from an empirical, interdisciplinary perspective.
Today, Dr. Howard is passionate about helping others live authentically and expand their lives, which may have been narrowed by efforts to manage painful and unwanted experiences. Dr. Howard welcomes feedback and invites collaboration with her clients, both to identify the most effective treatment for each individual, and to promote the safety and trust that is necessary for therapeutic change to occur. Dr. Howard believes that each session should feel meaningful and useful, and that significant progress can happen in a short time when the therapist and client are on the same page.
