Sherryl Hope Goodman

• Ph.D.
• Professor at Emory University

Purpose Pregnant and postpartum mothers with physical disabilities face discrimination in healthcare settings and high rates of maternal and obstetric complications, as well as having higher rates of lifetime depression prior to pregnancy, potentially increasing their likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression (PPD). Some studies have found h...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266026.].

This article includes Author Insights, a video abstract available at: Perinatal depression in transgender and gender expansive individuals (youtube.com).

Growing attention has been placed on examining the family environment as antecedent of attachment, including the coparenting relationship. Parents’ satisfaction with the coparenting relationship may be particularly of interest when parents are at heightened risk for depression, as depression has been consistently linked to negative coparenting, poo...

Depression in mothers is consistently associated with reduced caregiving sensitivity and greater infant negative affect expression. The current article examined the real-time behavioral mechanisms underlying these associations using Granger causality time series analyses in a sample of mothers (N = 194; 86.60% White) at elevated risk for depression...

Research has shown mixed results regarding the association between women’s postpartum depression and mother–infant interactions, suggesting that a woman’s unique experience and context may moderate how depression shapes these interactions. We examined the extent to which a woman’s comorbid anxiety, her exposure to adversity, and infant characterist...

Introduction: Accurate measurement of perinatal depression is vital. We aimed to 1) test whether a factor that measured positive affect (PA) bettered a transdiagnostic model of depression symptoms and 2) replicate the model in a second sample. Methods: We conducted secondary analyses from two samples (n's = 657 and 142) of women in treatment at...

Exposure to infant crying is a well-established predictor of mothers' mental health. However, this association may reflect many potential mechanisms. Capturing dynamic fluctuations in mothers’ states simultaneously with caregiving experiences is necessary to identify the real-time processes influencing mental health. In this study, we leveraged eco...

How mothers respond to infants' distress has implications for infants' development of self-regulation and social competence. In a sample of 35 mothers and their 4- to 8-month-old infants, we induced infant distress using an arm restraint task and compared infants' observed affect and physiological responses under two conditions, when mothers were i...

Theory and research suggest chronic direct and indirect exposures to racism impact health, and stress-responsive inflammation may play a role in these paths. This study examines links between forms of racism-related stress, salivary markers of inflammation during acute psychosocial stress, and perinatal mental and physical health in a racially hete...

Numerous cross-sectional studies confirm the long-theorized association between mothers’ depression and lower parenting self-efficacy (PSE) beliefs. However, cross-sectional studies leave unanswered the direction of this association: Does depression predict PSE? Does PSE predict depression? Are both true? Does the strength of the association betwee...

Age and gender differences are prominent in the temperament literature, with the former particularly salient in infancy and the latter noted as early as the first year of life. This study represents a meta-analysis utilizing Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) data collected across multiple laboratories (N = 4438) to overcome limitations...

Children of mothers with a history of depression are at heightened risk for developing depression and other maladaptive outcomes. Deficits in parenting are one putative mechanism underlying this transmission of risk from mother to child. The present study evaluated whether a brief intervention with mothers with a history of depression produced grea...

Ample research links mothers’ postpartum depression (PPD) to adverse interactions with their infants. However, most studies relied on general population samples, whereas a substantial number of women are at elevated depression risk. The purpose of this study was to describe mothers’ interactions with their 6- and 12-month-old infants among women at...

In utero cannabis exposure can disrupt fetal development and increase risk for various behavioral disruptions, including hyperactivity, inattention, delinquent behaviors, and later substance abuse, among others. This review summarizes the findings from contemporary investigations linking prenatal cannabis exposure to the development of psychopathol...

Temperament, i.e. individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation, emerges early in infancy; might temperament originate during fetal development? Mixed findings and methodological issues in the literature examining this consideration limit our understanding of the continuity between these fetal indices and infant temperament. The primary...

Doel: Deze studie beoogt het opvoedgedrag van moeders van adolescente dochters met herhaaldelijke zelfbeschadiging te kwalificeren, en om de veronderstelde relaties tussen opvoedgedrag en psychopathologie bij adolescenten te toetsen. Methode: deelnemers waren moeders en hun veertien tot achttien jaar oude dochters (N = 51 dyades), onder wie 24 adol...

Depression during pregnancy, with the often-accompanying anxiety and stress, carries risks for mothers and their infants, and while antidepressant medications (ADM) are used to treat these disorders (and presumably reduce risks to mothers and their children), prenatal exposure to these medications is also associated with adverse developmental outco...

Memorializes Scott O. Lilienfeld (1960-2020), one of the most influential figures in contemporary clinical psychology. His contributions were prodigious and spanned psychopathy and personality disorders, psychiatric classification and di agnosis, dissociation, memory and trauma, neuroscience, and cultural sensitivity. He authored, coauthored, and c...

SYNOPSIS Objective. The present study aimed to enhance understanding of continuity and stability of positive parenting of infants, across age and different settings in women with a history of depression who are at elevated risk for postpartum depression. Design. Mothers (N = 103) with a history of major depression and their infants were observed du...

Objectives One core assumption of mindfulness interventions is that engagement via session attendance and at-home mindfulness practices is essential to the program’s efficacy. In two samples of pregnant women who underwent Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Perinatal Depression (MBCT-PD), we aimed to evaluate predictors of engagement as well a...

This editorial describes the rationale behind changing this journal's title beginning in 2022. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

This paper responds to the need to understand mechanisms in the pathways of risk from depression in mothers to their children’s functioning. We systematically reviewed evidence in support of one often-proposed mediational model: that problematic parenting at least partially explains associations between mothers’ depression and children’s adverse fu...

The original version of the article requires a correction to one of the sentences. Under the section 'Limitations', the last sentence 'Findings of no support for mediation was also deemed important as, for example, our findings suggest..' should read as below. Also important were where we found no support for moderation of the mediation model; for...

Hundreds of studies have documented an association between depression in mothers and behavior problems in children. Theory and empirical findings suggest this association may be confounded by other factors, but little attention has been paid to this issue. We used propensity score methods in a sample of 731 low-income families assessed repeatedly f...

We evaluated frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry across multiple contexts as an index of a general affective response predisposition in 12‐month‐old infants whose mothers were at elevated risk for perinatal depression due to their mother’s history of depression. We further examined mothers’ prenatal, postnatal, and concurrent depressive sy...

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field's investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we c...

Objective: Preventive interventions for postpartum depression (PPD) are critical for women at elevated risk of PPD. Mindfulness based cognitive therapy – perinatal depression (MBCT-PD) is a preventive intervention that has been shown to reduce risk for PPD in women with a prior history of depression. The objective of this clinical trial is to exami...

Clinical guidelines recommend assessing depression during pregnancy and postpartum but often overlook potential changes in symptoms across this developmental period. Such changes contribute to difficulties in conceptualizing maternal depression. This study aimed to situate depressive symptoms and related concerns (anxiety, stress, sleep) across the...

Although maternal insensitivity, infant negative emotion expression, and maternal depression are consistently found to be associated, the processes by which these associations develop in the course of routine interactions are not well understood. To examine the processes by which these factors may become related, this paper characterizes the real-t...

The study of depression in mothers in relation to transmission of risk for the development of psychopathology in their children relies on solid foundations in the understanding of psychopathology, of development, and of developmental psychopathology per se. This article begins with a description of the scope of the problem, including a summary of k...

Studying offspring of depressed mothers is a promising strategy for elucidating factors that contribute to depression onset, given that these offspring are 3 to 6 times more likely to develop depression than are their low-risk peers. In this article, we briefly describe representative findings from studies of younger and older offspring of depresse...

The study of a wide range of topics covered by clinical research studies relies on data obtained by observational measures. These include observations of individuals (adults, children, but could also be animals), couples, parents and their child(ren), or groups observed for varying amounts of time in settings that range from naturalistic to structu...

This study examined positive affect (PA) trajectories over the first year of life among infants of mothers with a history of depression (N = 191) as well as predictors (i.e., maternal prenatal and postpartum depression symptoms, maternal parenting behaviors) of those trajectories. Infant PA was observed in play and feeding tasks during laboratory v...

Feedback that young children receive from others can affect their emotions and emerging self-views. The current experiment tested the effect of negative content (criticism) and negative tone (hostile) of the feedback on children’s affect, self-evaluations, and attributions. We also explored whether maternal history of depression and children’s temp...

Objective: This study aimed to characterize parenting behaviors of mothers of adolescent daughters who engage in repetitive self-inflicted injury (SII) and to test hypothesized associations between parenting behaviors and adolescent psychopathology. Method: Participants were mothers and their 14- to 18-year-old daughters (N = 51 dyads), includin...

Introduction: Insomnia during pregnancy is prevalent, yet little is known about preferred treatments for the disorder. The current study investigated both pregnant women’s and their partners’ preferences for treatment of maternal insomnia, comparing the two most empirically supported therapies: cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and...

Psychotropic medication use and psychiatric symptoms during pregnancy each are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. Commonly, studies considering medication effects do not adequately assess symptoms, nor evaluate children when the effects are believed to occur, the fetal period. This study examined maternal serotonin re...

Although animal models and correlational studies support a model of fetal programming as a mechanism in the transmission of risk for psychopathology from parents to children, the experimental studies that are required to empirically test the model with the human prenatal dyad are scarce. With a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature,...

This handbook provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the science of stress and mental health. Topics covered include assessment issues, the role of stress in various mental disorders, developmental influences and individual difference factors that predict reactivity to stress, and treatment of stress-related mental health problems. Decade...

Given high health costs of depression during pregnancy and the first postnatal year, it is important to understand mechanisms involved in the emergence and perpetuation of symptoms during this time. In a series of 2 studies, we aim to clarify bidirectional relations between mothers’ physiological stress regulation—stress-related activation of the h...

Understanding parenting from both parent and child perspectives is critical to child clinical and developmental research. Similarities and differences between parents’ and children’s reports can be highly informative, but only if they derive from psychometrically sound measures that assess the same parenting constructs. We examined the psychometric...

When providing mental health services to adults, we are often treating individuals who, among their other roles, are also parents. The goal of this article was to provide practitioners with the state of the science about both the impact of parental psychopathology on children and the role that children's well-being has in parental psychopathology....

When providing mental health services to adults, we are often treating individuals who, among their other roles, are also parents. The goal of this article was to provide practitioners with the state of the science about both the impact of parental psychopathology on children and the role that children's well-being has in parental psychopathology....

Risk for internalizing problems and social skills deficits likely emerges in early childhood when emotion processing and social competencies are developing. Positively biased processing of social information is typical during early childhood and may be protective against poorer psychosocial outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that young children wit...

Objective: To determine pregnant women's preferences for the treatment of insomnia: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-I), pharmacotherapy, or acupuncture. Design: A cross-sectional survey of pregnant women. Setting: We recruited participants in person at a low-risk maternity clinic and a pregnancy and infant trade show and invited them to comp...

Depression in mothers is a significant risk factor for the development of maladjustment in children. This article focuses on modifiable risk processes linking depression in mothers and adaptation in their young children (i.e., infancy through preschool age). First, the authors present evidence of the efficacy of interventions for reducing the prima...

SYNOPSIS Objective. Recognizing that not all mothers at risk for depression engage in insensitive parenting, this study examined predictors of individual differences in sensitive parenting of infants by mothers with histories of depression, who are at elevated risk for depression during the perinatal period. Design. We examined maternal personal ch...

Objective: Depression among pregnant women is a prevalent public health problem associated with poor maternal and offspring development. Behavioral activation (BA) is a scalable intervention aligned with pregnant women’s preference for nonpharmacological depression care. This is the first test of the effectiveness of BA for depression among pregnan...

Associations between infants' frontal EEG asymmetry and temperamental negative affectivity (NA) across infants' first year of life and the potential moderating role of maternal prenatal depressive symptoms were examined prospectively in infants ( n = 242) of mothers at elevated risk for perinatal depression. In predicting EEG, in the context of hig...

Depression occurring during pregnancy and postpartum (i.e., the perinatal period) is common and associated with adverse outcomes for women and their offspring. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has been shown to reduce risk for depressive relapse among at-risk individuals generally, and recent adaptations document MBCT’s efficacy among per...

Children who expect they can bring about good outcomes and avoid bad outcomes tend to experience more personal successes. Little is known about factors that contribute to these ‘control expectancies’. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether children's internal control expectancies occur in the context of parents’ internal control...

Objective: Clinical decision-making regarding the prevention of depression is complex for pregnant women with histories of depression and their health care providers. Pregnant women with histories of depression report preference for nonpharmacological care, but few evidence-based options exist. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy has strong evidenc...

The objective of this study is to develop a simple, brief, self-report perinatal depression inventory that accurately measures severity in a number of populations. Our team developed 159 Likert-scale perinatal depression items using simple sentences with a fifth-grade reading level. Based on iterative cognitive interviewing (CI), an expert panel im...

Yoga may be well suited for depressed and anxious pregnant women, given reported benefits of meditation and physical activity and pregnant women's preference for nonpharmacological treatments. We randomly assigned 46 pregnant women with symptoms of depression and anxiety to an 8-week yoga intervention or treatment-as-usual (TAU) in order to examine...

Perinatal mental disorders are associated with increased risk of psychological and developmental disturbances in children. However, these disturbances are not inevitable. In this Series paper, we summarise evidence for associations between parental disorders and offspring outcomes from fetal development to adolescence in high-income, middle-income,...

Pregnant women with histories of depression are at high risk of depressive relapse/recurrence during the perinatal period, and options for relapse/recurrence prevention are limited. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has strong evidence among general populations but has not been studied among at-risk pregnant women to prevent depression. We...

Both concurrent and prospective associations between maternal depression and father involvement were tested to evaluate support for the spillover model (higher depressive symptom levels associated with lower father involvement) and the compensatory/buffering model (higher depressive symptom levels associated with higher father involvement). Partici...

Background/Aims Perinatal depression is both prevalent and associated with adverse correlates and consequences for women and offspring. Women and their health care providers often face complex choices regarding treatment of depression during pregnancy. Although studies suggest that pregnant women express a preference for psychotherapy over antidepr...

The goal of this Special Section is to explore the ways that investigation of reward function can shed light on the development and pathophysiology of psychopathology. Reward function provides a promising starting point for clinical affective neuroscience research because, thanks to the extensive literature on the neural mechanisms of addiction, th...

Electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns may reflect a vulnerability to depression. In an effort to understand their earliest origin, we examined their stability and consistency and their associations with perinatal depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were measured prospectively throughout the perinatal period in 83 women with histories of depressi...

This special section honors Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema's influential work dedicated to improving our understanding of psychopathology. Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema adopted a transdiagnostic perspective to identify mechanisms that underlie many emotional disorders such as cognitive processes and emotion regulation. Her work on the role of rumination and the rol...

While much has been learned about depression in mothers as a risk for the development of psychopathology in offspring, many questions about how the risk is transmitted remain unanswered (National Research Council & Institute of Medicine, 2009). Moreover, maternal depression is too often considered to be a unitary construct, ignoring the likely dive...

Depression during the perinatal period is common, debilitating, and consequential for women and their children, particularly among low income African American women. Viable approaches to prevention of depression have emerged. Yet little is known about women's preferences for approaches to preventing depression. A sample of 60 pregnant, low-income A...

Patient preferences are increasingly recognized as important in clinical research and the delivery of evidence based practice in psychology. Although the prevention of depressive relapse/recurrence among perinatal women is an important public health goal, little is known about pregnant women’s preferences and attitudes toward relapse/recurrence pre...

Although high rates of attachment disorganization have been observed in infants of depressed mothers, little is known about the role of antenatal depression as a precursor to infant attachment disorganization. The primary aim of this study was to examine associations between maternal antenatal depression and infant disorganization at 12 months in a...

This paper presents an analysis of the integration of speech and motoric behaviors emitted by 38 children, ages 3½ to 5 years, during phases in the process of solving a series of six jigsaw puzzles. Children's activities during puzzle solving were videotaped; speech was transcribed; speech and nonverbal behavior were unitized and categorized; and t...

Taking a developmental psychopathology perspective, our objective was to identify ways in which psychosocial treatment of depression during pregnancy may be enhanced. We first consider the state of evidence on psychosocial interventions for antenatal depression, next define key developmental psychopathology concepts that are relevant to antenatal d...

With this issue, beginning Volume 121, the editorial team shifts from the strong leadership of David Watson to a team under my direction. Approaching 125 years of publication, the Journal of Abnormal Psychology has earned its place as the preeminent outlet for research in psychopathology. With gratitude to the newly assembled team of associate edit...

The associations between relationship adjustment and symptoms of depression and anxiety were evaluated in a sample of pregnant married or cohabiting women (N = 113) who were at risk for perinatal depression because of a prior history of major depression. Women completed self-report measures of relationship adjustment, depressive symptoms, and anxie...

This prospective study examined the variability within clinical characteristics of antenatal maternal depression and cortisol levels for associations with newborn infant behavior using the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS; T.B. Brazelton, 1984). Participants were 81 pregnant women at risk for perinatal depression given their histories of...

Several theoretical perspectives suggest that knowledge of children's perceptions of and beliefs about their parents' depression may be critical for understanding its impact on children. This paper describes the development and preliminary evidence for the psychometric properties of a new measure, the Children's Perceptions of Others' Depression -...

Many children are exposed to depression in their mothers and fathers. Between 6% and 17% of women experience a major depressive episode,1 and rates of subsyndromal depression are even higher.2 Rates in men are considerably lower but still substantial. Further, owing to depression being a highly recurrent disorder,3 many children are exposed multipl...

Although the association between maternal depression and adverse child outcomes is well established, the strength of the association, the breadth or specificity of the outcomes, and the role of moderators are not known. This information is essential to inform not only models of risk but also the design of preventive interventions by helping to iden...

Mindfulness meditation is increasingly being used as a way of managing pain, reducing stress and anxiety and, in the form of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), as a way of reducing the risk of recurrence in depression (NICE, 2004). This article considers its potential for parents preparing for childbirth focusing on three areas: managing p...

Perinatal depression is a serious and disabling disorder that has enduring consequences for both women and their children. Although efficacious pharmacologic strategies are available, many perinatal women are reluctant to continue or start antidepressant medications because of the concern about impact on the fetus or, later, the nursing infant. Wei...

This study examined the quality of mother–infant interaction and levels of perceived stress and parenting efficacy in association with mothers' levels of depression among mothers with significant depressive symptoms during the postpartum period, who were followed prospectively during treatment, and their infants less than 6 months old. Mothers with...

Background: This study examined psychosocial and personal functioning during pregnancy in women at risk for depression recurrence based on having had at least one major depressive episode (MDE) preceding the pregnancy. Methods: Three groups of women, who differed in recurrence of depression during pregnancy, were compared: (1) women who had at l...

The high-risk paradigm (Mednick & Schulsinger, 1968) has provided the foundation for the current line of research on psychopathology. This method emphasizes the identification of both mechanisms and moderators of risk in the transmission of psychopathology from depressed parents to their offspring. The primary goal of this chapter is to examine the...

Whether one takes a biological, psychological, or psychosocial perspective, depression in mothers raises concerns about risks for the development of psychopathology in the children. This review addresses the complexity of that risk and the essential role of development in a model that explains processes of transmission. This article addresses the f...

Psychopathology does not typically appear suddenly but, rather, emerges gradually through the course of development. Knowledge of early developmental processes is crucial for understanding mental disorders, even those that emerge in adolescence or adulthood. Imagine an army officer determining how to command his army after hearing only the last few...

In an attempt to account for the many factors involved in the transmission of risk for psychopathology from depressed mothers to their offspring, Goodman and Gotlib (1999) developed an integrative and developmentally sensitive model for understanding mechanisms whereby children of depressed parents might be at risk for the development of psychopath...

The inadequate parenting associated with mothers' depression may be related to mothers' problems in interpreting infants' emotional expressions. The relations between depressed and well mothers' accuracy at interpreting babies' facial expressions and the quality of the mothers' interactions with their infants were examined. In partial support of ou...

This volume represents a burgeoning perspective on the origins of psychopathology, one that focuses on the development of the human central nervous system. The contemporary neurodevelopmental perspective assumes that mental disorders result from etiologic factors that alter the normal course of brain development. Defined here in its broadest sense,...