Dr. Anderson is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in couples and family therapy. She is also recognized as an expert on divorce, remarriage, and blended families. Her private practice has been in Irvine and Laguna Beach for more than 20 years where she is part of a multidisciplinary group of independent practitioners. While her practice focuses on couples and families, she also works effectively with individual adults and adolescents.

Dr. Anderson graduated from Stanford University in Psychology with Great Distinction and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and the Cap and Gown Honor Society. She received advanced graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and the California School of Professional Psychology. Her clinical training included an internship at the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and the Palo Alto VA Hospital; an APA approved internship at the University of California, Irvine Counseling Center and the UCI Department of Psychiatry. She was selected for a special internship with the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. where she spent two years of intensive training at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in group psychotherapy, family therapy and inpatient psychiatric and forensic treatment.

Dr. Anderson has received intensive postgraduate training in couples and family therapy. She completed an externship in family therapy at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and further family therapy training at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto as well as the Georgetown Family Center in Washington, D.C. Later, she finished additional rigorous training in couples therapy from the Couples Institute in Menlo Park and completed two externships and Advanced Training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT).

Dr. Anderson has been director of the UCI Family Therapy Training Program for more than fifteen years and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine (UCI).  At UCI, she teaches and supervises psychiatry residents and frequently provides specialized training in couples therapy to many Southern California mental health agencies. Dr. Anderson’s Couples Therapy seminar at UCI has become a sought after training experience and her ongoing consultation groups offer more intense supervision for professionals wanting postgraduate clinical training in marital therapy.

Dr. Anderson also serves as president of the Foundation for the Contemporary Family (FFCF), a non-profit foundation whose mission is to support innovative research, clinical training, and community programs that address the important issues facing contemporary families. She has been instrumental in bringing many internationally renowned clinicians and researchers to Orange County for major conferences and intensive workshops to provide cutting-edge training to our local professional community. Under her leadership, the Foundation has been busy
fulfilling its mission over the last few years:

• Developing the Anatomy of Intimacy conferences as well as other large clinical conferences on contemporary family issues.
   

• Offering scholarships to mental health professionals to attend various trainings in order to diversify the pool of therapists in Southern California competent in marital and family therapy
   

• Providing grant funding for innovative programs and research projects on marriage, divorce, remarriage and blending families
   

• Reaching out to the community with support for several creative community parent education programs in local school districts
   

• Supporting the My Hero website, an internationally award-winning interactive website for parents, teachers and children

• American Psychological Association

• American Family Therapy Academy

• American Association of Marital and Family Therapists

• Phi Beta Kappa Society

• Stanford Professional Women of Orange County

• Orange County Psychological Association