Ph.D
Joan Davidson, Ph.D. (14532) is a licensed psychologist and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy. Dr. Davidson is Assistant Professor in the Clinical Sciences Program at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founding Fellow and Certified CBT Diplomate of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies.
For over thirty years she has worked as a cognitive-behavioral clinician specializing in treating adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety disorders (panic disorder and agoraphobia, phobias, social anxiety, generalized anxiety and worry), mood disorders, and problems with body focused repetitive behaviors such as trichotillomania (hair pulling) and skin picking. She is a graduate of the Trichotillomania Learning Center’s Professional Training Institute on Trichotillomania and Related Behaviors.
Dr. Davidson teaches, writes, and provides clinical consultation and supervision to students and licensed professionals. She presents workshops for consumers and professionals both locally and nationally. She has trained therapists, medical residents, and graduate students on topics such as the fundamentals of CBT, treatment for specific anxiety disorders and body focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBS), and transdiagnostic case formulation and treatment planning.
Her clinical work strongly focuses on developing individualized treatment plans that identify mechanisms (processes) underlying problems and diagnoses, such as intolerance of uncertainty, perfectionism, over-responsibility, core beliefs, and beliefs about rumination and worry, among others. She helps clients by blending elements of empirically supported treatments (CBT, ERP, ACT, metacognitive therapy, mindfulness, and compassion-focused strategies) while drawing on individual strengths, creativity, backgrounds, and histories. This approach is described in detail in the book she coauthored with Rochelle Frank, Ph.D., “The Transdiagnostic Roadmap to Case Formulation and Treatment Planning.”
She is one of the founding members of the Northern California CBT Network and served on its Board of Directors for over 13 years. She served on the Board of Directors for OCD SF Bay Area, an affiliate of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF), and on the Professional Education Committee for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) from its inception until she finished her tenure as Co-Vice Chair in 2024.
In addition to the books and videos listed below, Dr. Davidson has co-authored book chapters on case formulation, created a measure, the Functioning and Satisfaction and Inventory (FSI), to assess changes in functioning across various life domains pre and post treatment, published on treatment for BFRBs, and appeared on podcasts about OCD and panic.
Dr. Davidson’s interest in psychology began when she was a psychology major at Smith College in Northampton, MA, before taking a leave of absence to attend UC Berkeley, where she chose to stay and complete her BA degree in psychology. She earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology at Boston University and returned to Berkeley to make it her permanent home. She received her Ph.D. from the California School of Professional Psychology (Alliant University) in the Bay Area while pursuing research experience at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her pre-doctoral internship at UCSF/SFGH’s Depression clinic, where she trained in CBT treatments for depression and anxiety disorders, as well as individualized case formulation and treatment planning with Dr. Jackie Persons. She continued to train with Dr. Persons, and along with Dr. Persons and Dr. Tompkins, founded the SFBACCT in 1995. She completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship studying psychobiologic reactivity (i.e., individual differences in physiological reactivity, such as sympathetic nervous system activation under stress) at UCSF/UC Berkeley.
Dr. Davidson is the author of Daring to challenge OCD: Overcome your fear of treatment and take control of your life using exposure and response prevention (2014) and co-author of A Transdiagnostic road map to case formulation and treatment planning: Practical guidance for clinical decision making (2014) both published by New Harbinger Publications. She has co-authored book chapters on cognitive behavioral case formulation, and with her colleagues at the Center, Dr. Persons and Dr. Tompkins, she published a videotape series used for training clinicians to conduct cognitive-behavior therapy for depression and a book, The Essential Components of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Depression (American Psychological Association, 2001).
510.652.4455 ext. 2