Carolyn Pape Cowan, PhD is Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been co-director of three longitudinal studies of how family relationships affect children’s adaptation. Along with Philip Cowan, Marsha Kline Pruett, and Kyle Pruett, she developed a couples group intervention for parents of babies and young children, in which mental health professionals work weekly with parents to strengthen their relationships as partners and as parents. Evaluated in seven trials in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., the couples groups have had long-term positive benefits for the parents and for their children’s development – in middle-class, working-class, and low-income parents from varied ethnic backgrounds. Professor Pape Cowan is co-editor of “Fatherhood Today: Men’s Changing Role in the Family” (Wiley, 1988) and “The Family Context of Parenting in Children’s Adaptation to Elementary School” (2005, Erlbaum). She is co-author with Philip Cowan of “When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples” (Basic Books, 1992, reprinted in 2000 by Lawrence Erlbaum). Dr. Cowan has authored numerous research articles in scientific journals and consults nationally and internationally on the development and evaluation of interventions for parents.
