Lynn McFarr, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director
Dr. Lynn McFarr is the Founder and Executive Director of CBT California/DBT California. She is a Professor of Health Sciences in the Department of Psychiatry for the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine (retd). Dr. McFarr served for over 20 years in multiple capacities at Harbor- UCLA Medical Center including Founder/Director of the Cognitive Behavioral/Dialectical Behavior Therapy Clinic, Int. Training Director and Int. Chief of Psychology. Dr McFarr served as the Practice Lead for CBT and DBT for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. There she developed and initiated the Los Angeles County Roll Outs of CBT and DBT (LACROCBT and LACRODBT respectively) training over 4000 front line clinicians to competency in CBT and DBT.
Dr. McFarr received her Ph.D. from New York University (NYU) in clinical psychology. She also trained as a cognitive behavioral therapist under Dr. Robert Leahy at the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy (AICT) in New York City. She completed her internship at the Sepulveda VA and her postdoctoral fellowship at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. McFarr is an award winning trainer of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, MFTs, and psychiatric nurses in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies including DBT, CBASP, and ACT. She has twice been acknowledged as Teacher of the Year for the Department of Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA. Dr. McFarr received Psychologist of the Year from the LA County Department of Mental Health. She also received both the Service Award and the Outstanding Educator/Trainer Award from The Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). She lectures for major universities and regularly presents at national and international conferences.
Dr. McFarr is the President of The International Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IACBT). She is past President of the Academy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and a Beck Scholar. She founded the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Society of Southern California (CBTSSC). Dr. McFarr also founded the listserves for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) and CBASP. Dr. McFarr was the senior editor of Cognitive Therapy for eight years. She also founded the first DBT dedicated publication DBT Bulletin in 2018.
Dr. McFarr conducts research and publishes on all aspects of training, supervision, dissemination and implementation of CBT and DBT. She is a member of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Strategic Planning Meeting, a consortium of international DBT researchers. She also served as Program Chair for the International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (ISITDBT). Dr. McFarr is certified in CBT by the Academy of CBT, CBASP by the CBASP org. She developed the measures currently being used to assess competency in DBT.
Dr. McFarr sees adults via telehealth and in the Beverly Hills and Torrance offices.