Soundly Sleeping

Joel L. Becker, Ph.D. is the director of CBA, received his doctorate in 1977 from the University of Georgia.  He did his internship at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center where he was a Clinical Fellow in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Becker founded Behavior Associates and The Boston Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in the late 1970’s.  These were the early years of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Dr. Becker studied and interacted with the early leaders and pioneers in the field (e.g. Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, B.F. Skinner and others). 

He was active in the early years of his professional association serving as chair of several important committees including Professional Issues.  During his years in Boston, Dr. Becker was on the clinical faculty of Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, the Veteran’s Administration and several psychoanalytical institutes (as a consulting CBT practitioner).

Dr. Becker is currently the Director of Cognitive Behavior Associates and Cognitive Behavior Therapy Institute, a Clinical Professor at the Department of Psychology at UCLA, as well as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Bio-behavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is also a Diplomate, Fellow, and Certified Trainer/Consultant of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy.