Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Barbara Stroud

The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health: An Interview with Dr. Barbara Stroud

An Interview with Dr. Barbara Stroud

Barbara Stroud, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with over three decades worth of culturally informed clinical practice in early childhood development and mental health. She is a founding organizer and the inaugural president (2017-2019) of the California Association for Infant Mental Health, a ZERO TO THREE Fellow, and holds prestigious endorsements as an Infant and Family Mental Health Specialist/Reflective Practice Facilitator Mentor. In 2018 Dr. Stroud was honored with the Bruce D. Perry Spirit of the Child Award. Embedded in all of her trainings and consultations are the activities of reflective practice, demonstrating cultural attunement, and holding a social justice lens in the work. Dr. Stroud’s book “How to Measure a Relationship” [published 2012] is improving infant mental health practices around the globe and is now available in Spanish. Her second book, an Amazon best seller, “Intentional Living: finding the inner peace to create successful relationships” walks the reader through a deeper understanding of how their brain influences relationships. Both volumes are currently available on Amazon. Additionally, Dr. Stroud is a contributing author to the text “Infant and early childhood mental health: Core concepts and clinical practice” edited by Kristie Brandt, Bruce Perry, Steve Seligman, & Ed Tronick.

Dr. Stroud received her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from Nova Southeastern University, and she has worked largely with children in urban communities with severe emotional disturbance. Dr. Stroud’s professional career path has allowed her to work across service delivery silos supporting professionals in mental health, early intervention (part c), child welfare, early care and education, family court staff, primary care, and other arenas. She is highly regarded and has been a key player in the inception and implementation of cutting-edge service delivery to children Prenatal to five and their families; her innovative approaches have won national awards. More specifically, Dr. Stroud is a former preschool director, a non-public school administrator, director of infant mental health services and agency training coordinator. She has held an adjunct faculty position at California State Long Beach and maintained a faculty position in the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship for 12 years. Currently, Dr. Stroud’s primary focus is professional training and private consultation from an anti-racist lens, with a focus on social justice, in the field of infant mental health. Dr. Stroud remains steadfast in her mission to ‘changing the world – one relationship at a time’.

What is infant and early childhood mental health?

• Looking at big feelings and social and emotional development
• The current brain science that is impacting infant and early childhood mental health
• How adults impact infant developing brains

What are the basics that therapists should know when working with children under 5 years old?

• The importance of dyadic therapy
• Parent training
• Social emotional developmental stages
• The damage of punishment on the development of an authentic self

What infants need to love themselves, have healthy development

• Infants want to be safe, seen, heard, and helped
• Co-regulation and holding the big feeling with the child
• The impacts of this work on adults
• Transgenerational work – we treat the parent in the way that we would like the parent to treat the child
• How to support parents in healing their own wounds

Therapy Interventions for infants and children under five years old

• Play therapy is complex and advanced and requires training and supervision
• Before children can think symbolically or have words, play is not effective
• Attunement and attachment work