Dr. Saraff is a licensed clinical psychologist with educational and work experience both in India and the US, in a wide range of settings spanning different ages, difficulties, socio-economic status, ethnicities, cultures, identities, and clinical problems. She has worked at K-12 school and community mental health center in India. In the US, she has worked at University counseling centers, inpatient, intensive outpatient, and outpatient hospital settings; and in specialty research clinics that offer treatment. She is currently in private practice at Cambridge Psychology Group and is Instructor in Psychiatry at UMASS Chan Medical School, providing didactic education to psychiatry residents.
Dr. Saraff specializes in evidence-based therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). She is an expert in treatment of debilitating anxiety disorders such as panic disorder and agoraphobia, phobias, health anxiety, social anxiety as well as obsessive compulsive and related disorders (OCRD) using CBT approaches such as exposure and response prevention (ERP). She is certified as a specialist in Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, by the American Board of Professional Psychology and is a trained and registered provider in cognitive processing therapy (CPT) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She has advanced training in and provides dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for individuals struggling with life-threatening behaviors such as suicidality and self-injury; self-destructive and impulsive behaviors such as (binge-eating, reckless driving, and excessive spending); emotion regulation difficulties (mood swings, anger, frequent irritability); interpersonal difficulties, and behavioral problems.
Dr. Saraff received her Master’s in clinical psychology from Mumbai University and has experience working at schools, community health centers, mental hospital, and government hospital in India. She graduated with PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Wyoming; completed her predoctoral internship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and her postdoctoral fellowship at Boston University’s world-renowned Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Most recently, she worked for over 5 years at UMASS Memorial Medical Center providing individual and group therapy and helping people with a wide range of difficulties. Dr. Saraff has conducted research related to non-suicidal self-injury and suicidality, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety. She has collaborated with researchers at UMASS Chan Medical School and has led an NIH-funded research project on suicide prevention in healthcare systems based on the Zero Suicide framework.
Dr. Saraff is passionate about creating awareness related to mental health and providing critical educational and therapeutic resources to the South Asian community. To this end, she has created a network of mental health professionals who are of South Asian origin, to help pool resources and better serve the community.
