Samantha Fordwood Meredith, PhD

Dr. Samantha Fordwood (she/her) is a Clinical Professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University, her doctoral degree from UCLA, and completed her internship and postdoctoral training at UCSF. Samantha specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a goals-focused and skills-based treatment that addresses a wide range of emotional and behavioral issues and involves the practice of emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness and mindfulness skills. Adolescents and young adults in the UCSF Wavefront DBT Program typically struggle with significant emotion dysregulation and engage in suicidal and self-harming behaviors, disordered eating behaviors, substance use, and other high-risk behaviors. Samantha is also experienced in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for anxiety and mood disorders, as well as in Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) for trauma. In addition to providing clinical services, Samantha remains involved in research on delivering evidence-based treatments in clinical settings. She enjoys supervising psychology and psychiatry trainees and teaching about DBT and related topics.