Dr. Anderson is passionate about helping children and families thrive. As the founder of the Caring Cove, a licensed psychologist in New Jersey, a certified school psychologist, and an expert in the field of child and adolescent psychology, she has dedicated her career to understanding the emotional and behavioral needs of families. She understands that the needs of each individual and family are unique, and she is committed to using compassionate, evidence-based treatments to meet these needs.
She specializes in treating youth with emotional and behavioral difficulties, including oppositional behavior, ADHD, anxiety, trauma, and depression. She also provides treatment targeting school-related challenges and social skill deficits. Additionally, she is passionate about providing treatment for parents because—let’s be honest—parenting can be hard! With expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), she has helped hundreds of clients find relief and achieve their goals. She is one of few therapists in New Jersey certified in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) as both a therapist and a within agency trainer. She is also certified in Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and Parent Child Interaction Therapy for Selective Mutism. She has extensive training in Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) Treatment, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Brazelton Touchpoints, and the Attachment, Regulation and Competency Framework (See “Approach” page for more information about treatment approaches offered at the Caring Cove).
Prior to starting Caring Cove, she served as a Supervising Psychologist at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and provided expert witness testimony in child maltreatment cases. She also was the Director of the Foster Care Counseling Project and the Assistant Director of the Center for Psychological Services at GSAPP at Rutgers University. Dr. Anderson remains committed to training other clinicians to improve access to evidence-based care for families throughout the state. She currently serves as a Visiting Clinical Supervisor at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP) and supervises postdoctoral fellows at Caring Cove.
She also has experience working in schools, residential treatment centers, and inpatient units. With her experience, she is well equipped to advocate for the educational needs of children, navigate school systems, provide teacher consultations, and treat difficulties that impede academic performance and success on standardized tests.
Her clinical experiences have fueled her research and passion for training other practitioners. She has written book chapters, published articles in peer-reviewed journals, and presented at national and international conferences on the topics of child and family therapy. Her research has focused on four key areas: understanding the effects of anxiety and trauma on school functioning, ascertaining the needs of parents of children with special needs, assessing the manifestation of childhood trauma symptoms, and examining group and individual treatment outcomes.
She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Marist College. She received a second M.A. in educational psychology and her doctorate in School and Clinical Psychology from Kean University.
In her free time, you can find her running after her three children and bulldog, trying to do yoga, and enjoying time with family.
