About Tina

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is the co-author (with Dan Siegel) of the best-selling THE WHOLE-BRAIN CHILD (Random House Delacorte, 2011).  She is a psychotherapist at Pediatric and Adolescent Psychology Associates (in Arcadia, California) and at the Center for Psychological Services (in West Los Angeles), where she offers parenting consultations and provides therapy to children and adolescents.  She speaks to parents, educators, and clinicians all over the world, and she has written for numerous venues, for example mom.me, SkillForKids and the PBS series “This Emotional Life.”  She has also co-hosted a web-based parenting show and makes frequent media appearances, most recently on “Good Morning America” and in Redbook Mazgazine.  She is the School Counselor at Saint Mark’s School in Altadena, the Director of Parenting Education at the Mindsight Institute, and the Developmental Consultant for Camp Chippewa in Cass Lake, Minnesota.  Tina earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, where her research explored attachment science, childrearing theory, and the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology.

Tina emphasizes that before she’s a parenting educator, or a researcher, she’s a mom.  She limits her clinical practice and speaking engagements so that she can spend time with her family.  Alongside her husband of 19 years, parenting her three boys is what makes her happiest:  “They’re my heart.  Their personalities make life so much fun. They’ve also made my research very personal, helping bring together the different roles I play in my life, where I’m part-time educator/researcher, and full-time Little-League-mom/super-Jedi-spy-with-laser-powers.  As I’ve studied attachment and childrearing theory and the science of how brains work, I’ve been able to apply that knowledge and let it help me parent more the way I want:  lovingly, intentionally, and effectively.”

Tina’s professional life now focuses on taking research and theory from various fields of science, and offering it in a way that’s clear, realistic, humorous, and immediately helpful.  As she puts it, “For parents and teachers, learning about how kids’ (and their own) brains work is surprisingly practical, informing how they handle discipline, how they help kids deal with everyday struggles, and ultimately how they connect with the children they care about.”