GROUPS

Help for Hair Pullers, Skin Pickers, and Other Tricky Habits

An ongoing group for adults learning to manage problems with body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs)

LOCATION: College Ave., Oakland (Rockridge)

DAY/TIME: Tuesdays, 12-1:20 pm

COST: $100/session

COMMITMENT: 8 sessions

Learning to manage urges to pull your hair, pick your skin, or engage in other body-focused repetitive behaviors can be challenging. Problems with BFRBs can lead to feeling embarrassed, ashamed, and discouraged. Treatment strategies can be tremendously helpful but practicing and fine-tuning them to meet your needs can leave you feeling alone and frustrated. Often, it is hard to stay motivated to practice using the helpful tools you learn. In this group, you’ll learn strategies from experienced clinicians and receive support and encouragement from others who face similar challenges.

An eight-session commitment is required.

To learn more, contact Joan Davidson, Ph.D. at: (510) 652-4455 x 2.

GROUP LEADERS

Joan Davidson, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY14532), Co-Director at the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley.

Daniela Owen, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY23748), Asst. Director at the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley.


Facing Panic, Stopping Avoidance:
Understanding panic sensations and regaining your freedom

For adults with panic and agoraphobia

LOCATION: College Ave., Oakland (Rockridge)

DAY/TIME: Friday mornings, 9:30-10:50 am

COST: $100/session

COMMITMENT: 8 sessions

Panic sensations feel frightening. Learning to face them rather than avoiding them is the goal of treatment, yet it’s not always easy to do. Suffering from panic attacks and avoiding places that trigger them (e.g., driving freeways, being alone, going anywhere where you might panic and fear not being able to cope) can leave you feeling vulnerable, embarrassed, and alone. In this group, you’ll learn strategies from an experienced clinician and receive support and encouragement from others who face similar challenges.

An eight-session commitment is required.

To learn more, contact Joan Davidson, Ph.D. at: (510) 652-4455 x 2.

GROUP LEADER

Joan Davidson, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY14532), Co-Director at the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley.


OCD Mindfulness-Based
Self-Compassion Group

A 10-week group for adults in treatment or post-treatment for OCD

LOCATION: San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy in the Rockridge district of Oakland, CA (3 blocks from the Rockridge BART station)

DAY/TIME: Thursdays, 6:30-8:00 (Start date to be determined)

COST: $250 for pre-group individual assessment and orientation to determine if the group is a good match for you and to prepare for initial group session
$100 for each group session

This support group focuses on building skills in mindfulness, self- kindness and self-compassion while gaining support from others who are facing the challenges of OCD. Treatment for OCD involves exposure and response prevention (ERP), which is hard work and involves facing terrifying thoughts and situations without using compulsions. It can feel overwhelming and isolating to face daily OCD challenges. It can also feel discouraging to continually practice ERP, only to face more triggers of distress. If you suffer from OCD, you may feel a great deal of shame and self-criticism and find it difficult to be kind to yourself.

Based on the research of Kristen Neff and the research and clinical expertise of Paul Gilbert, as well as the clinical expertise of Christopher Germer, mindfulness and self-compassion are core principles and practices that enable us to respond to difficult moments in our lives with kindness, care, and understanding.

The key components of self-compassion are: self-kindness – which opens our hearts to suffering so we can give ourselves what we need, balanced mindful awareness – which opens us to the present moment, helping us to accept our experience with greater ease, and a sense of common humanity – which opens us to our essential interrelatedness so we know we are not alone.

In this group, we focus on developing emotional resources to face the challenges of OCD. Group activities include brief talks on mindfulness, self-kindness, and self compassion, meditation exercises, experiential exercises, group discussions, and practices to use between sessions. The goal is to develop practices that evoke compassion in our daily lives.

No previous experience with mindfulness or meditation is required to attend. Self-compassion can be learned by anyone. Self-compassion provides emotional strength and resilience, reduces self-criticism and isolation, and allows us all to be more authentically ourselves.

For more information and to schedule an individual assessment session, please call Dr. Davidson at 510-652-4455 ext 2.

GROUP LEADERS

Lynne  Henderson,  Ph.D., is founder  of the Shyness Institute and was director of the Stanford Shyness Clinic for 25 years. She has been a visiting scholar and lecturer in the Psychology Department at Stanford University. Lynne is trained in MBSR, Mindful Self-Compassion and Compassion-Focused Therapy. She teaches MSC at the Womens Cancer Resources Center. She is the author of The compassionate mind guide to building social confidence using compassion-focused therapy (2011, New Harbinger) and Helping your shy and socially anxious client (2014, New Harbinger).

Joan Davidson, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, a founder and Co-Director of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and Assistant Professor in the Clinical Sciences Program at the University of California, Berkeley. For over twenty years she has specialized in treating adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety disorders, and mood disorders. She 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, New Harbinger) and co-author of The Transdiagnostic Roadmap to Case Formulation and Treatment Planning (2014, New Harbinger) and Essential Components of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression (2001, APA).


A Kinder Way:
Getting through adolescence using the powerful science of self-compassion

For teens ages 15-19

LOCATION: College Ave., Oakland (Rockridge)

DAY/TIME: Tuesday evenings 5 pm-6:30 pm

COST: $600 for 6 group sessions

COMMITMENT: 6 sessions

At best, the teenage years are full of challenge—school, family, and friends can all be sources of stress, and now more than ever there’s enormous pressure to stand out and measure up. In this group, you’ll learn about the powerful science of self-compassion and why being overly self-critical actually moves us further away from our goals. Putting this science into practice, you’ll see how awareness, kindness, and connection can help transform your feelings about yourself.

This group is designed for adolescents ages 15-19. A six-session commitment is required.

To learn more, contact Emily Berner, LMFT, at (510) 652-4455 x 5.

GROUP LEADERS

Emily Berner, MFT (MFT81533) is a licensed marriage and family therapist and Partner at the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy.

Joan Davidson, Ph.D. (PSY14532) is a licensed psychologist, Co-Director at the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.