David Pincus PhD

I especially enjoy helping with OCD because of my own, and my family members’ personal experiences with anxiety. This specialty is also satisfying because psychotherapy tends be effective, clear-cut, and brief compared to other problems. Because of my academic work at the University, I typically only practice on Wednesdays (9:00-7:00), with around 1/2 of my practice devoted to working with people with OCD and related symptoms.

Although I specialize in the treatment of OCD, I also have over 25 years of experience working with families, couples, and treating the full spectrum of anxiety, mood, and relationship problems.

Treatment of Co-occurring Disorders:

In addition to OCD treatment, I also see people with relationship problems, phase of life problems, mood disorders, AD/HD, and most other issues that bring people to therapy. I have training in a range of approaches, from behavioral to psychodynamic, and work collaboratively to make an individualized plan for each client.

I am an Full Professor with Tenure at Chapman University and a licensed Clinical Psychologist. I began providing therapy in 1992, as a social worker, prior to entering the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Marquette University. After Marquette, I completed an APA Approved internship at Shasta County Mental Health and an APPIC approved Post-Doc at UC Davis Department of Psychiatry (altogether, about 15,000 hours of training). Since 2003, I have continued to treat OCD in private practice, while doing independent scientific research on and clinical training in psychotherapy, anxiety and OCD, and systems modeling of human resilience.

Diversity Statement:

As humans, we really don’t fully exist outside of a variety of contexts, right? I was fortunate to have a wide range of training experiences early in my career.
and so I’ve got a very rich and diverse background of training and experience with various racial, ethnic, economic, geographic, age, sexual and gender groups. From infancy to old age, rural to urban, inpatient to in-home… If you happen to fall into a very rare or unique category, or have a unique blend of intersectional categories for which I have no experience to draw upon, then I’m happy to keep learning.

I’ve been attending, and conducting, training on cultural competency since I started working in human service and psychotherapy in 1992. Our general social norms have changed a bit since the ‘olden days.’ However, the simplest lesson hasn’t changed: the importance of maintaining a “humble stance.” This means that I know pretty well what I don’t know, that no level of training can ever prepare you to understand the cultural experience of any unique individual, and that my clients’ are the best source for learning about their personal cultural experiences.