Amy E. West

Dr. West is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Associate Training Director for Psychology in the Division of General Pediatrics, and Director of the CHLA Child Clinical and Pediatric Psychology Internship.  In addition, Dr. West holds a secondary appointment as a Professor in the Department of Psychology at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and is a faculty member of the USC interdisciplinary Center for the Changing Family. Dr. West’s primary clinical and research interests focus on psychosocial treatment outcome and mechanisms of treatment response in pediatric mood and anxiety disorders, and specifically the application of such interventions to underserved, ethnic minority populations. Dr. West also has research interests in the developmental psychopathology of mood and anxiety disorders in children, preventing suicidal behavior in youth, perinatal mental health, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) mental health and substance use disparities. She has been funded by NIMH, PCORI, SAMHSA, CA DHHS, and multiple private foundations for her research in these areas. She is currently a Co-I and the Director of CBT implementation on a large clinical trial studying medication and CBT treatment sequencing for pediatric anxiety disorders in a predominantly underserved, ethnic minority population. Dr. West is also part of a research team with colleagues in the Department of Preventative Medicine at USC and funded by DHHS/SAMHSA to study opioid and substance use prevention and treatment in California urban and rural AIAN tribal communities. Finally, Dr. West continues to study a family-based cognitive-behavioral intervention, child and family-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (CFF-CBT) – also called RAINBOW therapy -- that she developed with colleagues for children 7-13 with bipolar spectrum disorders. CFF-CBT is now an evidence-based treatment with manuals published in Oxford University Press's "Treatments That Work" series.