Kristina Reigstad, PsyD, LP

I am a licensed child and adolescent psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at the University of Minnesota Medical School. I have been a faculty member since 2014. I completed my doctoral training at the University of St. Thomas and a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology and research in the Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the University of Minnesota. I am also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology.  

I have dedicated my career to team science and bridging the research to practice gap by improving the delivery of services and outcomes for: the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents, maternal mental health treatment, and the development of parent-based interventions for adolescent depression and self-injury. The goals of my research and clinical work are to aid in ameliorating the multigenerational impact of mental health disorders during sensitive periods of development (e.g., during pregnancy/in-utero, adolescence), and across the lifespan. I am a co-investigator and clinical supervisor in the Research in Adolescent Depression Lab (RADLab ). The RAD Lab aims to advance understanding of the biology of mood disorders in adolescents and to test how investigational treatments may work to improve mental health, and informs my work in intervention development.

Given the importance of attachment throughout development and the limited number of attachment-based interventions available for parents of older children, I seek to improve the translation of attachment-based research to practice beyond infancy and early childhood. To address this gap in the field, increase supports available for parents, and translate what I have learned in research and clinical practice, I developed a novel attachment-based manualized treatment for parents of adolescents with depression (Healthy Emotions and Relationships with Teens (HEART-P)—a guide for parents; Reigstad, Gunlicks-Stoessel, Westervelt, & Gearity, 2022), and a second iteration for parents of adolescents who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (HEART-P-NSSI). I also have specialized training in evidence-based therapies including Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents (IPT-A), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and CBT with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). 

In addition, I co-founded and co-direct the UMN Department of Psychiatry's Women’s Wellbeing Program (WWBP), the University's first multidisciplinary (e.g., perinatal psychiatrist, psychologists, medical residents and child psychiatry fellows, social workers, nurses, psychology graduate and postdoctoral learners, and medical students) perinatal mental health outpatient program and clinical training program (founded in 2017). The WWBP provides compassionate reproductive and perinatal mental health treatment using a multigenerational approach to care. Our team provides diagnostic evaluations, psychotherapy, medication treatment and consultation. We are dedicated to the delivery and dissemination of best practices for supporting women’s mental health in the perinatal period, meeting the needs of our community, and increasing opportunities for perinatal training within medical school education. 

I provide clinical services at the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB), and clinical supervision and services at the UMN Department of Psychiatry’s Outpatient Clinic, and the Behavioral Health Clinic for Families (BHCF). I train psychology graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, medical residents, and child psychiatry fellows, and I am passionate about trainee development and educating the next generation of clinicians. In my work as a clinical supervisor I focus on ongoing clinical programming development and leadership efforts related to bringing perinatal, family and parent informed approaches and understanding to our individualized clinical work and intervention modalities by providing research informed support, knowledge, and intervention opportunities to promote whole family system health.

Expertise

• Psychotherapy
• Parent-based interventions to address disruptions in parent-adolescent attachment
• Adolescent psychopathology
• Parental mental health

Administrative Assistant

(for academic support only)
Molly Jokimaki
[email protected]

In the Media

• 2022: Coauthor of a study featured (although not named) in this MIDB article: "First Study to Evaluate Neurobiological Predictors of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents".