Dr. Smith received her PhD in clinical psychology from the #2 clinical psychology doctoral program in the nation, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she completed her pre-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. While at UNC and Columbia, Dr. Smith received clinical training in cutting-edge evidence-based clinical interventions from world renowned clinicians and researchers. Specifically, Dr. Smith has expertise in DBT with adolescents and adults, as well as in the combined DBT + Prolonged Exposure protocol (DBT-PE) for individuals with significant emotion regulation difficulties and PTSD. Dr. Smith’s other training includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure with Response Prevention for the treatment of anxiety, Couples Therapy, Family Therapy, Behavioral Parent Training, and Behavioral Activation (BA).

 

Dr. Smith has been expertly trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure with Response Prevention by Dr. Jon Abramowitz, an internationally renowned expert in research and treatment for OCD. She is an expert at treating feelings of anxiety and depressed mood. She also received expert level training in cognitive-behavioral couples therapy (CBCT) by Dr. Don Baucom who is an internationally acknowledged expert in couples therapy and one of the developers of CBCT.

​

Lastly, Dr. Smith has also been specially trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), an extremely effective treatment for creating cognitive, behavioral, and emotional changes in individuals seeking for more balance in their lives. DBT incorporates a balance of acceptance and change strategies to help people create lives that they truly enjoy living. Accepting reality rests on our ability to be self-aware and other-aware (mindful), which then gives us the ability to assess what needs to change, and then make those changes. This treatment was created by world-renowned researcher and clinician Dr. Marsha Linehan, and Dr. Smith received her DBT training through the Linehan Behavioral-Tech Institute.​