Elizabeth Jane McMahon Ph.D.

Elizabeth Jane
McMahon, PhD
10/23/2024
Liz McMahon, clinical psychologist, wife, mother, and devoted grandmother, died on October 23 from non-smokers lung cancer. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her, especially her three-year-old grandson Mickey.
Liz was born in Burlington Vermont to Mickey (Edmund Brown) McMahon and Elizabeth Simms McMahon on October 19, 1950. Liz, or Betsy as she was called at that time, graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland in 1968. She earned a BA in Psychology from Earlham College and her MA and PhD in Psychology from Case Western Reserve University with a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship at University of Virginia Medical Center and a Post-Doctoral Residency at the Sheppard-Pratt Psychiatric Hospital in Baltimore.
While interviewing for graduate school in 1974, Liz met Chuck Ehrlich. Their relationship was on and off while Liz completed her training and Chuck relocated for his work. In 1980 Liz relocated to San Francisco to be with Chuck and they married on her birthday. Their daughter Laura was born in 1983.
Also in 1980, Liz joined Kaiser Permanente as a clinical psychologist. She worked at Kaiser in Fremont for over 30 years providing outpatient psychotherapy, training postdoctoral residents, and developing treatment programs. Following her retirement from Kaiser in 2013, she started a private practice in San Francisco specializing in anxiety issues, including the therapeutic use of Virtual Reality. Liz pioneered the use of VR in psychotherapy and became a leading expert on VR therapy for anxiety.
Liz is survived by her mother Betty McMahon, sisters Patricia Rice, Nancy Dykstra, Mary Schultz, and Andrea Kuzela, husband Chuck (Charles) Ehrlich, daughter Laura Elizabeth Ehrlich, son in law Sean Smith, and grandsons Wesley Smith and Mickey (Edmund McMahon) Smith.
Donations in her honor may be made to San Francisco Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund, Planned Parenthood or Earlham College.