Nicole A. Schaffer, Ph.D.
*Dr. Schaffer is not currently accepting new patients.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Nicole Schaffer has helped adults work through depression, anxiety, relationship and interpersonal difficulties, and the stress of demanding lives and its toll on health and well-being. A licensed clinical psychologist in New York State, trained in cognitive and behavioral therapies and in behavioral medicine, she brings deep experience and a warm, collaborative, strengths-based approach to each person she works with.
Dr. Schaffer received her Ph.D. in Clinical Health Psychology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, after earning her M.A. and Ed.M. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a pre-doctoral internship and a neuropsychiatric research postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry, followed by a clinical postdoctoral fellowship at the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy.
Dr. Schaffer practices a range of cognitive and behavioral therapies, tailored to the individual. She draws on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and mindfulness-based approaches, along with positive psychology and a focus on each person’s strengths. First trained in Transcendental Meditation™ in 1989, she has practiced meditation ever since, including mindfulness meditation and Coherent Breathing. Her training in behavioral medicine and health psychology shapes much of her work, from health-related behavior change to the emotional and behavioral aspects of physical health. Dr. Schaffer is a committed advocate for patients navigating the healthcare system. She has co-authored several books on weight control and obesity and received the American Medical Writers Association Book Award in 1998. Throughout her career she has taught graduate students at Columbia University and supervised medical students at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Schaffer lives in New York City with her family, and she is at a live concert every chance she gets. In a parallel universe with a little more musical talent, she’d have sold her soul to play blues guitar.