Danielle Berman, MS, CLS, PsyD Candidate

Supervised by Dr. Valentina Ogaryan, Clinical Psychologist, PSY #30248

Responsibilities

As a psychology doctoral intern, my responsibilities are to provide assessment, emotional, and psychosocial care for patients and their families affected by a cancer journey. I work with a multidisciplinary team and use an integration of evidence-based interventions and a human-centered approach to best support patients and their loved ones. I will be providing direct patient care in different UCLA clinic locations, including Westwood and Santa Monica.

Training and Professional Experience

After receiving my bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, I pursued a master's degree in child life from Bank Street College of Education. After this, I worked as a child life specialist helping children and their families navigate different diagnoses and procedures. I had the opportunity to work with pediatric patients and their families in the Hematology/Oncology clinic, Burn unit, Emergency Department, and Renal/Dialysis unit, among other locations. During my time as a child life specialist, I felt that I wanted more psychological understanding and background to help patients through these difficult times. Therefore, I chose to pursue my doctorate in psychology, beginning this journey in 2021 at the University of La Verne.

During my time as a doctoral student, I trained at UCLA Harbor Ties and Adventist Health White Memorial. At UCLA Harbor Ties, I worked with children who had been a part of the foster care system, were adopted, or who experienced trauma in early childhood. I also assisted with psychosocial assessments for pediatric patients. At Adventist Health White Memorial, I worked with patients across the lifespan who were going through difficult life changes, such as motherhood or the loss of a loved one, along with patients struggling to handle life's stressors and needing extra support. I am now in my final training year and am ecstatic to be focusing my work at Simms/Mann.

Professional Publications

• Berman, D. I., Giani, J., Berk, S., & Mahrer, N.E. Resilience in children after motor vehicle accidents (MVAs). Poster presented at the Western Psychological Association Conference, April 2024.

• Sommer, V., Berman, D., Newkirk, J., & Mahrer, N.E. (2023, November). Virtual Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (vACT) for Youth with Chronic Illnesses: A Case Study. Poster presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) 57th Annual Convention. Seattle, WA.

• Mahrer, N.E., Sommer, V.S., Berman, D. I., Ngo, N., & Gold, J.I. (2023). Virtual Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (vACT) for Youth with Chronic Illnesses: A Case Report. Medical Research Archives, 11(6). doi:10.18103/mra.v11i6.3897.

• Berman, D., Mahrer, N.E., Duffy, S., Huffman, N., & Cohen, R. (in press). Telemental Health: It’s Here to Stay, What Can We Do Better for Future Trainees? The Behavior Therapist.

• Nemetski, S. M., Berman, D. I., Khine, H., & Fein, D. M. (2021). Virtual reality as anxiolysis for children undergoing laceration repair in the pediatric emergency room: A pilot study. Journal of Emergency Medicine.

• Huffman, N., Cohen, R., Berman, D., Duffy, S., & Mahrer, N.E. (2022, April). Telemental Health: It’s Here to Stay, What Can We Do Better for Future Trainees? Poster presented at the Western Psychological Association 2022 conference, Portland, OR.

• Goss, D. (2017). Me and My Scars. ISBN: 978-1-36-613878- (Children’s book written as part of Master’s Thesis to help pediatric patients with burn injuries process their scarring).

• Hill, C. E., Kline, K., Bauman, V., Brent, T., Breslin, C., Calderon, M., Campos, C., Goncalves, S., Goss, D., Hamovitz, T., Kuo, P., Robinson, N., & Knox, S. (2015). What’s it all about? A qualitative study of meaning in life for counseling psychology doctoral students. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 28(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2014.965660(Link is external) (Link opens in new window).

Personal Interests

My personal interests include being active and outdoors. I love running or going on hikes with my family. Additionally, I enjoy snowboarding and exploring nature. You can mainly find me goofing around with my kids and dog when I’m not working.

Languages

I speak conversational Hebrew and am available to provide emotional support or outreach if needed in this language.