Valerie Swisher earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Westmont College in December 2021. Valerie’s experience includes researching and providing behavior therapy for OCD and other conditions. During her major honors thesis, she examined the impact of mental health literacy and family functioning on help-seeking behavior in adults with OCD. She also worked as a research assistant for the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, Tic Disorder Program, where she examined the impact of obsessive-compulsive symptoms on disturbed sleep. She continues to serve as a clinical research coordinator for this program, where she is currently assisting in the examination of Tourette Disorder and disrupted circadian rhythms.
Outside of her research, Valerie has experience in providing behavior therapy to children and adults with autism, OCD, and other conditions. As a behavioral interventionist at California PsychCare, Valerie worked with children with autism using Applied Behavioral Analysis. As a Memory Trainer at the UCLA Longevity Center, Valerie provided one-on-one cognitive rehabilitation training to adults with dementia and other aging disorders. Valerie is passionate about using her clinical skills and empirical education on OCD to provide psychoeducation and excellent clinical care to those suffering from the condition.
In the future, Valerie would like to pursue her Ph.D. in clinical psychology to continue to research and provide empirical psychotherapeutic interventions to those suffering from OCD. Valerie is supervised by Dr. Jennifer Lynch, Psy.D. (PSY30626).
