Dr. Cynthia L. Grace, PsyD

Media Releases

Get to know Dr. Cynthia Grace, who serves the Brentwood and Walnut Creek, California areas at her private practice offices and Cancer Support Community.

Dr. Cynthia L. Grace is a Clinical Psychologist whose private psychotherapeutic practice is specialized toward the treatment of persons who are impacted by chronic health and medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, pre- and post-organ transplant, aging challenges and more.  Dr. Grace provides services in Walnut Creek and Brentwood, CA. Dr. Grace is also a Therapist, Outreach Coordinator and The Director of Training, on staff part time, at Cancer Support Community in Walnut Creek, CA. As a psycho-oncology specialist, she facilitates support groups, delivers workshops, and provides targeted services to persons affected by cancer.  

Dr. Grace has a deep understanding of the issues that impact people who manage chronic illness and concomitant problems, such as developmental delay, complicated medication regimens and life-threatening secondary illness.  In her own personal journey, she has 26 ongoing years of experience as a mother, caregiver, advocate and organ donor for her son, who experienced kidney failure at birth. Due to the challenges associated with these complex multiple roles, after 28 years in the business world, in 2007, Dr. Grace redirected her career path to earn a doctorate in Clinical Psychology in order to reach out to patients, caregivers and their doctors on a professional level, where she felt she could have a more broad-reaching positive impact.

Study findings reveal that patients, caregivers and family members dealing with medical illness experience trauma; however findings of empirical research studies, including Dr. Grace’s study on caregivers of transplant children, also suggest the possibility for personal growth and transformation beyond suffering, therefore, Dr. Grace helps patients to identify and process their illness-related issues within the framework of an empowerment model.

Personal: Dr. Grace attributes her professional success to her heart-driven passion for what she does, sincere caring for her patients, and years of hard work both personally and professionally.  She participates as a volunteer in various outreach efforts. She is the founder of her own non-profit organization to build awareness of the need for organ donation. Dr. Grace is a member of the American Psychological Association and the US Coast Guard Auxiliary. Dr. Grace volunteers her services in additional organizations, including The National Kidney Foundation, Donate Life America, Bay Area Kidney Patients, and The Patriots Jet Team Foundation.  When she is not working, she enjoys ballroom dancing, Pilates Reformer, reading, playing the piano and spending time with her family and friends. 

Recommended Articles

• What Are the Types of Bipolar Disorder?

  What is bipolar disorder?Bipolar disorder is a mental illness characterized by extreme mood swings. The mood swings can be extremely high or low. They can last a few hours, days, weeks or even months. The mood swings consist of mixed emotions both of extreme happiness or extreme depression.Bipolar...

• How to Handle the Most Challenging Autism Behaviors

  There will be difficult moments while raising a child with autism that a parent will find hard to deal with. However, there are certain situations that can be resolved with patience and knowledge of autism and how it can affect someone. By understanding what the child is feeling when they are...

• Breaking a World Record to Highlight Autism Awareness

  In San Antonio, volunteers are getting together to make the world's biggest blanket fort to highlight autism awareness.The idea for the blanket fortSo, how did people decide to gather to build the world's biggest blanket fort? As many of history's most influential decisions have been made, some...

• Using Theatre to Act Through Autism and Bullying

  Children with autism can have difficulties speaking with and interacting with other individuals. It can be stressful for them to comprehend what others think and feel. This, in turn, makes it difficult for them to express themselves to a full extent.For Jacob Redmon, who has Asperger’s syndrome,...

• Is Authoritative Parenting Healthy?

  A Brief HistoryDiane Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist, first defined authoritative parenting style in a system that classifies how parents raise their children. According to Baumrind, parenting has three major approaches, which are:...

• Children with Autism Found to Benefit from Art Therapy

  Finding a way to treat those with autism spectrum disorder is of the utmost importance for researchers. This especially holds true when it comes to children. With this in mind, a researcher from Florida State University, Theresa Van Lith, began working with art therapists in order to reinvent...