Sean Ransom, Ph.D.

Dr. Sean Ransom, the founder of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center of New Orleans, trained in CBT at the University of South Florida, a member institution of the Academy of Clinical Psychological Sciences, where he received his doctorate. He received additional training with the founders of CBT at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.

Dr. Ransom performed his doctoral research at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, one the nation’s top cancer hospitals, where he studied the positive personal changes in people dealing with breast and prostate cancer. After completing a clinical internship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Dr. Ransom joined the faculty of the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Brigham Young University’s Hawaii campus in 2006. In 2009, Dr. Ransom began serving as a clinical faculty member in the Tulane University Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences where he led the Patricia Trost Friedler Center for Psychosocial Oncology at the Tulane Cancer Center. Since 2015, Dr. Ransom has served on the faculty of the LSU Behavioral Health Center Department of Psychiatry, teaching CBT to psychiatry residents and being named the department’s Clinical Faculty of the Year in 2019.

Dr. Ransom has applied behavioral and cognitive-behavioral approaches to diverse sets of problems, such as medical illness, relationship difficulties, mood problems, spiritual concerns, stress and anxiety. He has trained in mindfulness-based therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, as well as Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Dr. Ransom has been a member of the Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis, the nation’s premier hypnotherapy research association, and is currently a member of the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. He is licensed as a clinical psychologist in Louisiana, Hawaii and Washington. He has collaborated with skilled colleagues to help open clinics across the country, including the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center of Hawaii, the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center of Puget Sound, and CBT Minneapolis-St Paul.

Dr. Ransom has presented nationally and internationally and is the author of numerous research articles on coping with cancer, social cognition, cultural psychology, post-traumatic growth, artificial intelligence-mediated psychotherapy, and other notable topics. His research has been published in well-respected journals such as the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Cancer.

Dr. Ransom is involved in local community service through numerous organizations, including his church and the New Orleans office of the American Cancer Society, where he volunteered to lead support groups for individuals with cancer and their loved ones. He has reviewed research grant applications for the National Cancer Institute and in recent years, has been a volunteer for the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, a program of the U.S. State Department to provide academic and leadership training opportunities in the United States to dynamic innovators and entrepreneurs from sub-Saharan Africa.