About Tina

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is a psychotherapist at Pediatric and Adolescent Psychology Associates in Arcadia, California, where she does parenting consultations and provides therapy to children and adolescents.  She speaks to parents, educators, and clinicians all across the country, and she has written for numerous venues, most recently the PBS series “This Emotional Life.”  She also co-hosts a web-based parenting show called The Intentional Parent.  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 18 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.  In other words, 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 to parents in a way that’s clear, realistic, humorous, and immediately helpful.  As she puts it, “For parents, learning about how their kids’ (and their own) brains work is surprisingly practical, informing how they handle discipline, how they help their kids deal with everyday struggles, and ultimately how they connect with their children.  Most parents haven’t heard this information before, and yet it is so helpful.  So one of my main goals is to take scientifically-grounded knowledge, and use it to help parents better understand their kids and themselves, and most importantly, to apply it in the parenting trenches—in their breakfast-table, grocery-store, temper-tantrum, everyday parenting world.”

Tina and Dan Siegel are excited about the appearance of their new book, The Whole-Brain Child (Random House Delacorte, 2011).

Email Tina.