Fielding Graduate University

Areas of Instruction:

• Psychopathology
• Serious Mental Illness and Psychosis
• Object Relations
• Parent-Infant Mental Health
• Infant Observation
• Developmental Psychology
• Multicultural Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Group Process and Organizational Development
• Thematic Apperception Test
• The Psychological Assessment of Object Relations and Social Cognition
• Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Scholarly & Professional Interests:

• Pregnancy
• Stress
• Birth Outcome
• Mother-Infant Behavioral Interaction and Attachment
• Object Relations: Development and Psychopathology

• Psychological Assessment (Serious Mental Illness, Child and Family Assessment in Families Under Stress)
• Group Process and Organizational Development in Non-Profit Organizations
• The Management of Similarity, Difference, and Diversity in Organizational Life
• Psychotherapy Supervision and Case Consultation

Professional Memberships:

• American Psychological Association (39)
• Lacanian Clinical Forum
• Rapaport-Klein Study Group
• Gay and Lesbian Medical Association

Honors and Awards:

• 1987-1988: University of Michigan Research Fellowship Award
• 1983-1987: University of Michigan Merit Fellowship
• 1981-1982: Fellow, Columbia University, The Charles E. Revson Fellows Program on the Future of the City of New York

Publications:

• Hager-Budney, M., Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., & Ruffins, S. (in press). Maternal choice to breast-feed, object relations, and postpartum depression. Infant Behavior and Development.

Presentations:

• Ruffins, S. (2005, April). Fight club: Group identity and journeys to the self. Paper presented at the Lesley University/Boston Institute of Psychotherapy Film Series.
• Ruffins, S. (2004, April). The unspoken: The issues of race, gender, class, culture and organizational role in the trauma of survivors of September 11. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Philadelphia Group Psychotherapy Association.
• Ruffins, S. (2001). Mother-infant attachment: Ethological mechanism, psychological disposition or cultural artifact. Invited paper presented at the first meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in China, Beijing, China.

Professional Experience:

• Doctoral Faculty, School of Psychology, Fielding Graduate University.

Other Professional Activities:

• 2002-present: Co-Principal Investigator, Parenting in Times of Stress, Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA.
• 2001-2002: Consulting Psychologist, Housingworks, New York, NY.
• 1999-2002: Consulting Psychologist, Inwood House, New York, NY.
• 2001: Consulting Psychologist, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York, NY.
• 1984-1988: University of Michigan Psychological Clinic and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital (APA Approved).