Clinical Psychology in the Post-Dobbs Era: Navigating Clinical Practice, Research, and Advocacy in a Changing Sexual- and Reproductive-Health Landscape.

Since 2022, following the decision by the United States Supreme Court, abortion restrictions have increased throughout the country. This represents the most recent phase of decades of political and legal restrictions on abortion access, including the 1976 Hyde Amendment restricting federal funds for abortion services. Limiting access to legal abortion and safe reproductive healthcare has serious implications for the mental health of people who can become pregnant, and thus for clinical psychology.

Implementing contingency management in family medicine: A qualitative inquiry on provider and patient preferences for a low magnitude reward program compatible with buprenorphine treatment.

Background: Contingency management (CM) is an effective yet underutilized behavioral intervention that uses rewards to improve outcomes in medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment. Prior implementation attempts have focused on specialized addiction clinics, using intensive daily treatment with methadone and high reward values (e.g.

Emotion dysregulation and reward responsiveness as predictors of autonomic reactivity to an infant cry task among substance-using pregnant and postpartum women.

Maternal substance use may interfere with optimal parenting, lowering maternal responsiveness during interactions with their children. Previous work has identified maternal autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity to parenting-relevant stressors as a promising indicator of real-world parenting behaviors. However, less is known about the extent to which individual differences in emotion dysregulation and reward processing, two mechanisms of substance use, relate to maternal ANS reactivity in substance-using populations.

Effects of prenatal opioid exposure on infant sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity.

Prenatal opioid exposure has been associated with developmental problems, including autonomic nervous system dysregulation. However, little is known about the effects of prenatal opioid exposure on the autonomic nervous system beyond the first days of life, particularly across both the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches, and when accounting for exposure to other substances. The present study examined the effects of prenatal exposure to opioid agonist therapy (OAT, e.

Associations between cortical thickness and parasympathetic nervous system functioning during middle childhood.

Positive associations have been found between cortical thickness and measures of parasympathetic cardiac control (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) in adults, which may indicate mechanistic integration between neural and physiological indicators of stress regulation.

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Parenting Intervention During Infancy Alters Amygdala-Prefrontal Circuitry in Middle Childhood.

Objective: Early adverse parenting predicts various negative outcomes, including psychopathology and altered development. Animal work suggests that adverse parenting might change amygdala-prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuitry, but work in humans remains correlational. The present study leveraged data from a randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of an early parenting intervention targeting parental nurturance and sensitivity (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up [ABC]) to test whether early parenting quality causally affects amygdala-PFC connectivity later in life.

A 12-month follow-up of infant neurodevelopmental outcomes of prenatal opioid exposure and polysubstance use.

Background: Prenatal opioid exposure has been associated with developmental deficits during infancy, but the literature is limited by simple group comparisons and lack of appropriate controls. Previously published research with the current sample documented unique associations between prenatal opioid exposure and developmental outcomes at three and six months, but less is known about associations later in infancy.

Method: The current study examined pre- and postnatal opioid and polysubstance exposure as predictors of parent-reported developmental status at 12 months of age.

Psychology's Contributions to Anti-Blackness in the United States Within Psychological Research, Criminal Justice, and Mental Health.

The mass incarceration of Black people in the United States is gaining attention as a public-health crisis with extreme mental-health implications. Although it is well documented that historical efforts to oppress and control Black people in the United States helped shape definitions of mental illness and crime, many psychologists are unaware of the ways the field has contributed to the conception and perpetuation of anti-Blackness and, consequently, the mass incarceration of Black people. In this article, we draw from existing theory and empirical evidence to demonstrate historical and contemporary examples of psychology's oppression of Black people through research and clinical practices and consider how this history directly contradicts the American Psychological Association's ethics code.

Effects of an attachment-based intervention on autonomic regulation among opioid-exposed infants.

Little is known about whether postnatal intervention enhances autonomic regulation among infants at risk for dysregulation due to prenatal opioid exposure. The present study evaluated the effects of modified Attachment Behavioral Catch-up (mABC) on autonomic regulation for opioid-exposed infants in a pilot randomized clinical trial. We hypothesized that, compared to a control intervention (modified Developmental Education for Families [mDEF]), mABC would be associated with higher resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and pre-ejection period (PEP) as well as greater reactivity to and recovery from a social stressor (Still-Face Paradigm).

Combating the Conspiracy of Silence: Clinician Recommendations for Talking About Racism-Related Events With Youth of Color.

Graphic videos of race-based violence, including police brutality toward Black people and anti-Asian hate crimes, have exploded over the past year. While documentation of these horrific acts has brought visibility to the pervasiveness of racial discrimination, it has also resulted in youth of color being exposed to racial stressors more than ever before across numerous social media and news platforms. Beyond the significant race-related stress already experienced by youth in school contexts, this increased exposure to racism via media is concerning, as both direct and vicarious exposure to racial discrimination can compromise psychological well-being of youth and cause trauma-like symptoms, such as intrusive thoughts, vigilance, and depression.

Adapting psychophysiological data collection for COVID-19: The "Virtual Assessment" model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted research activities globally. Researchers need safe and creative procedures to resume data collection, particularly for projects evaluating infant mental health interventions. Remote research is uniquely challenging for psychophysiological data collection, which typically requires close contact between researchers and participants as well as technical equipment frequently located in laboratory settings.

Secure attachment in infancy predicts context-dependent emotion expression in middle childhood.

Attachment security has been linked to healthy socioemotional development, but less is known about how secure attachment in infancy relates to emotional functioning in middle childhood, particularly across multiple contexts. The present study examined associations between secure attachment in infancy and children's context-dependent emotion expression during a parent-child interaction at age 9 (N = 78) among families with Child Protective Services involvement (i.e.

Infant neurodevelopmental outcomes of prenatal opioid exposure and polysubstance use.

Background: Prenatal opioid exposure has been linked to adverse birth outcomes and delays in infant development. Existing literature is limited by a simple group-differences approach as well as inadequate controls for sociodemographic factors and polysubstance exposure co-occurring with prenatal opioid use.

Method: The current study assessed cumulative opioid exposure (duration of prescribed and illicit opioid use) as a predictor of infant birth outcomes and mother-reported developmental status at three and six months of age, controlling for polysubstance exposure.

Increasing secure base script knowledge among parents with Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up.

This study evaluated whether Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), a parenting intervention, altered the attachment representations of parents (average age of 34.2 years) who had been referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) due to risk for child maltreatment when their children were infants. Approximately 7 years after completing the intervention, parents who had been randomized to receive ABC (n = 43) exhibited greater secure base script knowledge than parents who had been randomized to receive a control intervention (n = 51).

Early parenting intervention accelerates inhibitory control development among CPS-involved children in middle childhood: A randomized clinical trial.

Children at risk for neglect or abuse are vulnerable to delays in inhibitory control development. Prior findings suggest that early parenting interventions that target parental sensitivity and responsiveness during infancy can improve executive function outcomes of high-risk children during preschool years; however, little is known about how persistent these gains are through middle childhood. Participants included 76 CPS-involved children who were randomly assigned to either the ABC intervention (N = 32) or the Developmental Education for Families (DEF) control intervention (N = 44), and 53 low-risk children.

Early Parenting Intervention Effects on Brain Responses to Maternal Cues Among High-Risk Children.

Objective: Early adversity is correlated with increased risk for negative outcomes, including psychopathology and atypical neurodevelopment. The authors aimed to test the causal impact of an early parenting intervention (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up; ABC) on children's neural processing of parent cues and on psychosocial functioning in a longitudinal randomized clinical trial.

Methods: Participants (N=68, mean age, 10.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a moderator of early maltreatment effects on later externalizing problems.

Physiological regulation may interact with early experiences such as maltreatment to increase risk for behavior problems. In the current study, we investigate the role of parasympathetic nervous system regulation (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] at rest and in response to a frustration task) as a moderator of the association between early risk for maltreatment (i.e.

Attachment security in infancy predicts reduced parasympathetic reactivity in middle childhood.

Children with histories of secure attachments during infancy are expected to develop healthier patterns of physiological activity at rest and in response to a stressor than children with insecure attachments. The present study examined longitudinal associations between infant attachment security and children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at rest and in response to a frustration task at age 9. The study focused on a sample of children referred from Child Protective Services ( = 97).

Evidence Base Update for Brief, Free, and Accessible Youth Mental Health Measures.

Evidence-based assessment (EBA) is foundational to high-quality mental health care for youth and is a critical component of evidence-based practice delivery, yet is underused in the community. Administration time and measure cost are barriers to use; thus, identifying and disseminating brief, free, and accessible measures are critical. This Evidence Base Update evaluates the empirical literature for brief, free, and accessible measures with psychometric support to inform research and practice with youth.

Effects of an attachment-based intervention in infancy on children's autonomic regulation during middle childhood.

The present study used a longitudinal randomized clinical trial to test whether an early intervention has causal effects on children's autonomic nervous system regulation. When children were infants, parents involved with Child Protective Services received Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC; N = 43), an intervention that promotes sensitive parenting, or a control intervention (N = 53). When children were 9 years old, children whose parents had received ABC exhibited higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia and lower heart rate at rest and during a parent-child interaction than children in the control group.

Perceptual Encoding in Auditory Brainstem Responses: Effects of Stimulus Frequency.

Purpose: A central question about auditory perception concerns how acoustic information is represented at different stages of processing. The auditory brainstem response (ABR) provides a potentially useful index of the earliest stages of this process. However, it is unclear how basic acoustic characteristics (e.

Depressive symptoms and error-related brain activity in CPS-referred children.

Early adversity such as maltreatment is associated with increased risk for psychopathology and atypical neurological development in children. The present study examined associations between depressive symptoms and error-related brain activity (the error-related negativity, or ERN) among children involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) and among comparison children. Results indicate that the relation between depressive symptoms and ERN amplitude depends on CPS involvement, such that depressive symptoms were associated with blunted ERNs only for CPS-referred children.