Evidence-Based Psychotherapy
I am Dr. Dara Friedman-Wheeler, a licensed clinical psychologist, and I use treatment strategies that have been shown through research studies to work, to help adults struggling with stress, depression, anxiety, and making health-related changes in their lives. I have extensive training in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which, conducted from a culturally-sensitive perspective, forms the basis for my work. I particularly embrace the framework of Recovery-Based CBT (R-CBT), which focuses on helping clients identify and work toward their own goals. I also use mindfulness- and compassion-based practices and principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
About Dr. Friedman-Wheeler
I am a clinical psychologist. I have a PhD in clinical psychology from American University, in Washington, DC. In graduate school, I completed training in client-centered therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy, and I conducted research on smoking cessation, depression, and coping. As part of my doctorate, I did a full-time clinical internship at the University of California, San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital, where I also did a post-doctoral fellowship, a year-long experience where I worked in a primary care liaison clinic with patients who were referred by their primary care doctors and who were struggling with a variety of issues, using CBT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). While at UCSF/SFGH, I also conducted research on coping with chronic pain. In 2006-7, I completed a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the “father of cognitive therapy”. At Penn, I worked on clinical research evaluating the effectiveness of CBT for helping suicidal individuals.
I was Professor of Psychology at Goucher College until 2021 and am now working as a Research Psychologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. I am also an adjunct faculty member at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. I have been a licensed psychologist in Maryland since 2009. I love living in Baltimore with my husband and two children.
I am currently conducting psychotherapy exclusively using “telehealth” – using video-conferencing (Zoom), or, in some cases, telephone. I am not seeing clients in-person right now.
Social Justice Statement
As a therapist, part of my role is to cultivate and encourage empathy, compassion and understanding for self and for others, including those who are oppressed, marginalized, or discriminated against, socially or systematically. One way I do this is by encouraging and facilitating critical thinking and the examination of current beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors that oppose these values and maintain social inequities. I am an advocate for social justice and will address these issues in therapy when they come up, to increase your healing and growth.
