Nikki Rubin, Psy.D.
Education and Background
Psy.D., Clinical Psychology, Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology
M.A., Psychology, Pepperdine University
B.A., Literature/Writing, University of California San Diego, Minors in Human Development and Spanish Literature
Licensure
CA PSY30047, NY 019595
Nikki Rubin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in evidence-based therapies. She received her B.A. from UCSD in Literature/Writing where she also completed Minors in Human Development and Spanish Literature. Dr. Rubin earned both an M.A. in Psychology and a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University's APA accredited Graduate School of Education and Psychology.
She began her training in ACT and 3rd wave CBT during graduate school at Harbor-UCLA's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Clinic in Torrance, California. She completed an APA-accredited internship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now Rutgers University) in Newark, New Jersey where she provided 3rd wave CBT to patients in the university hospital as well as to inmates in Northern State Prison. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in CBT at the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York where she also worked as a senior staff psychologist and served as the Co-Director of Clinical Training.
Dr. Rubin began her own private practice in Manhattan in 2014 as part of a small community of clinicians in New York who specialize in ACT and 3rd wave CBT. She returned to her hometown of Los Angeles in 2018 to continue her work in providing high quality evidence-based psychological treatments for adolescents and adults.
Dr. Rubin is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA where she trains clinical psychology doctoral students in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). She previously worked as an Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Clinical Supervisor/Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Teachers College and as an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Yeshiva University's Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology.
She is a full member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT).
Approach
Dr. Rubin believes in creating an open, safe, non-judgmental, and compassionate therapeutic environment that is informed by structure to help you make the changes necessary to build the life you want. She also believes in an equally kind and direct stylistic approach, coupled with a strong emphasis on collaboration. Dr. Rubin is highly committed to providing evidence-based treatments to help move you in the direction you wish to go.
Therapeutic Frameworks
Dr. Rubin has received extensive training in both 2nd and 3rd wave cognitive behavioral therapies, and thus has significant expertise in providing individually tailored treatments that draw from these evidence-based approaches. She primarily practices from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) orientation.
Dr. Rubin has also received training and supervision in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Written Exposure Therapy (WET), Prolonged Exposure (PE), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP), Schema Focused Therapy (SFT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
Her research during graduate school focused on sociocultural adaptations of cognitive behavioral therapies (e.g., DBT for Spanish-speaking Latinx patients; CBT for depressed cisgender men who tend to adhere to a traditional masculine gender identity).