About

Jessica Borelli is a Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Clinical Training at the University of California, Irvine. She is a clinical psychologist specializing in the field of developmental psychopathology. Her research focuses on the links between close relationships, emotions, health, and development, with a particular focus on risk for anxiety and depression. In her work, Dr. Borelli is interested in harnessing relationship science to develop interventions to improve mental health and well-being. Jessie Borelli is also the clinical director and founder of a private practice called Compass Therapy, where she sees children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Her areas of specialization include anxiety and mood disorders, parenting, and couples and family therapy.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Public relations
• Business
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Internal medicine
• Social psychology
• Nursing
• Knowledge management
• Surgery
• Cognitive psychology

Selected publications

• Mothers' responses to relational savoring as a function of attachment: A qualitative study

  Infant Mental Health Journal · 2026-05-15

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract A person's state of mind with respect to attachment, measured by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), represents how the individual perceives, accesses, and processes attachment‐related content. One's state of mind with respect to attachment is thought to guide behavior in relationships, including caregiving relationships, and thus may have important implications for parents’ engagement in parenting interventions. Relational savoring (RS) is a brief attachment‐based intervention that has been shown to increase mothers’ parenting sensitivity, feelings of closeness to their child, and positive emotion. However, it remains unknown how mothers with different attachment profiles respond to this intervention. In the current illustrative multiple case study, we examine how three mothers ( M age = 31.0 years, SD age = 1.0) of young children in the United States classified with different states of mind with respect to attachment respond to RS. First, we provide samples of mothers’ AAI discourse to illustrate their states of mind with respect to attachment. Next, we analyze their responses during RS sessions using a qualitative approach. Results demonstrate differences in mothers’ attachment‐related discourse, capacity for reflection, and change processes during the intervention that varied by attachment profile. We discuss the implications of these findings for RS and other parenting interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• The highs and lows: Cannabis use and positive valence bipolar mood and emotion processes in emerging adults

  Journal of Affective Disorders · 2026-03-16

  article
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• Psychological agency attenuates the link between discrimination and COVID-19 burnout in Latine-serving community health workers.

  Translational Issues in Psychological Science · 2026-04-16

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  = 81 Latine-serving CHWs) completed standardized measures of discrimination and burnout. Participants also provided discrimination narratives which were coded for psychological agency. Higher frequency of self-reported discrimination significantly predicted higher work- and COVID-related burnout. Additionally, agency moderated the association between discrimination and COVID-related burnout, such that at high levels of agency, discrimination no longer predicted COVID-related burnout. However, agency did not significantly moderate the link between discrimination and work-related burnout. Findings suggest that strengthening agency may protect Latine-serving CHWs from the adverse effects of discrimination during periods of acute external stress. Programs building on this buffer may be particularly crucial in the current period of sociopolitical hostility toward immigrant Latine communities and may have implications for workers serving other vulnerable communities.

  PublisherDOI

• The Rewards and Stresses of Teaching for Infant and Toddler Educators

  Early Childhood Education Journal · 2026-04-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Emerging work on educator well-being highlights relational well-being, a new construct reflecting, in part, the quality of educators’ workplace relationships, as potentially central for supporting educators. Relational well-being is understudied in the context of educators’ stressors, as are educators’ experiences in the relationships central to their work – those with children, families, colleagues, supervisors - which comprise their relational well-being. This qualitative study sought to advance our understanding of relational experiences and their impacts. Interviews were conducted with 22 infant/toddler educators from a Midwestern, U.S. state, most of whom worked in Early Head Start programs. Thematic analyses confirmed that educators’ experiences are simultaneously stressful and rewarding. Challenging and positive feelings coexist and are often inseparable, suggesting the need to consider both dimensions to better understand well-being. Novel findings included: 1) the framing of educators’ stressful and positive relational experiences as intrapersonal and interpersonal and the intersection of these dimensions; 2) educators’ explanations of the nuanced, challenging interactions with “upper” administrators with whom they had less frequent contact, and 3) educators’ intentional use of positive intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences to cope with stressors, and reduce the impacts of stressors on their interactions with children. Findings underscore educators’ intentional centering of children in their work and highlight educators’ use of rewarding experiences to sustain them and support responsive caregiving. The intentional use of rewarding experiences as a buffer may illustrate one path through which positive feelings relate to well-being. However, while this strategy was protective for children, it represented another layer of stress for educators.

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• Increasing Parental Well‐Being After the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Through Relational Savoring

  Family Process · 2026-05-16

  articleSenior author

  Despite abundant evidence that the admission of an infant to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a highly stressful and potentially traumatic experience for both infants and parents, few psychosocial interventions target the needs of parents of NICU infants. In particular, interventions supporting parents beyond the initial medical crisis are notably lacking. Relational savoring (RS) is a brief, positive psychology intervention that attunes one's focus to moments of positive connectedness within their relationships, including parent-child relationships. While the benefits of RS for parent-child dyads are well documented, its efficacy has not been evaluated in parent-child dyads facing significant relational stressors, such as those experienced in post-NICU contexts. Using a randomized controlled design, this study tests the effects of RS compared to a neutral control in 240 post-NICU parents in the United States. Parents reported on their closeness to their child, parental emotional well-being, and parental satisfaction before and after the intervention, as well as their history of perinatal loss and stress. Results of multilevel models suggest that, relative to a neutral control task, parents assigned to the RS intervention group exhibited significantly greater increases in feelings of closeness to their child, parenting satisfaction, and parental emotional well-being. Interestingly, the reduction in negative affect pre- to post-intervention was more pronounced for parents with a history of miscarriage, stillbirth, child loss, and/or fertility difficulties. These findings suggest that RS may represent a scalable intervention to support parent-child relationships and parental well-being in the post-NICU period, particularly for parents with prior perinatal loss and stress.

  PublisherDOI

• Navigating shared stress: Dyadic links between COVID-19 stressors and mental health in low-income Latine youth and mothers.

  Journal of Latinx Psychology · 2026-01-26

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  =41.03 years) were followed from pre-pandemic to during the pandemic, completing measures of mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression) and pandemic stress. Findings revealed domain specificity of associations, suggesting that the pandemic was differentially linked with depression and anxiety for youth and mothers. Further, our data revealed evidence of partner effects of mothers' pandemic stressors (previous COVID-19 infection, risk of contracting COVID-19, financial and physical impact) on youth depression, as well as partner effects of youth's and mother's pandemic stressors. Findings reveal a complex pattern of interrelations between youth and mother stress exposure and mental health during this time, providing directions for prevention/intervention efforts for underserved populations during global crises.

  PublisherDOI

• Parental Reflective Functioning in Latina Mothers: Sociodemographic Predictors and Links to Child Mental Health

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2026-01-05

  otherOpen accessSenior author

  The current study draws from baseline data collected for an intervention designed to support parent–child relationship quality and reduce youth aggression/violence among Latine immigrant families. The sample includes 157 Latine mother–youth dyads (youth ages 8–17). Parental reflective functioning (PRF), both self-reported and coded from the Parent Development Interview, has seldom been examined in this population. All aims are therefore framed as exploratory - directional hypotheses are delineated when theory and prior research provide a framework for generating them, but given that limited or no prior work has utilized these measures within Latine mother samples, the work is novel and exploratory in nature. Aim 1: Examine sociodemographic correlates of PRF in this sample. Given the limited prior work, we do not advance specific hypotheses. Aim 2: Examine associations between PRF and youth internalizing symptoms (anxiety and depression; self- and mother-reported). Consistent with the broader literature, we hypothesize that higher PRF will be associated with lower youth anxiety and depression. Aim 3: Examine associations between PRF and parenting behaviors coded from a parent-child interaction task. We hypothesize that higher PRF will be associated with higher levels of sensitive parenting behaviors and lower levels of distressed parenting behaviors.

  Publisher

• Detection of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder With Rest-Activity Data: Machine Learning Approach Using Wearable and Self-Report Data

  JMIR Formative Research · 2026-05-19

  articleOpen access

  Background: Growing evidence suggests that disruptions in rest-activity rhythms may serve as relevant markers of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite the emergence of machine learning methods applied to actigraphy and self-report data, few studies have used these approaches to identify individuals with clinically diagnosed PTSD. Prior work has focused on predicting probable PTSD based on self-report measures, yet discrepancies exist between clinical diagnoses and probable PTSD derived from self-reports. Objective: This study explored whether wrist actigraphy and sleep logs could be used to accurately predict clinician-rated PTSD diagnosis and probable diagnosis of PTSD based on established self-report cutoffs (PTSD Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition [PCL-5] ≥31 and ≥38) among trauma-exposed service members and veterans. We also explored which features were most strongly predictive of each outcome and whether models were able to predict PTSD diagnosis even when accounting for other mental health disorders. Methods: Wrist actigraphy data and daily sleep logs were collected over 1 week from trauma-exposed male service members and veterans (N=36; mean age 41, SD 5.3 y). Candidate features were identified using univariate feature selection. Extreme gradient boosting models were trained using leave-one-subject-out cross-validation to predict the diagnosis of PTSD and probable diagnosis of PTSD based on 2 self-report cutoffs (PCL-5≥31 and ≥38). Performance metrics were then calculated at the person level. Linear regression was used to assess the discriminant validity of model-predicted scores and each PTSD outcome specifically, relative to other mental health diagnoses. Results: Machine learning models predicting PTSD diagnosis and probable PTSD based on the PCL-5≥31 threshold demonstrated satisfactory performance in this sample. The diagnosis model achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.83 (95% CI 0.61-1.00), with high accuracy (88%) and specificity (96%) and moderate sensitivity (63%). The PCL-5≥31 model yielded comparable performance (AUC=0.84, 95% CI 0.71-0.98) with balanced sensitivity (73%) and specificity (82%). For both models, a combination of subjective and objective features was the most impactful. These models were able to predict PTSD even when accounting for non-PTSD mental health diagnoses, as model-predicted scores were significantly associated with 2 outcomes: clinician-rated PTSD (B=0.19; P=.002) and probable PTSD based on a PCL-5≥31 cutoff (B=0.24; P=.003). In contrast, the model predicting probable PTSD based on the PCL-5≥38 threshold performed poorly (AUC=0.47, 95% CI 0.24-0.69), with a nonsignificant relationship between model-predicted scores and the outcome (B<0.01; P=.89). Conclusions: Both subjective and objective rest-activity features may improve the prediction of PTSD. Further research is needed to validate these findings and explore the use of integrating wearable sensor data and subjective information to support PTSD assessment.

  PublisherDOI

• Relational Savoring as an Approach to Improve Marital Relationship Outcomes: A Pilot Study Among Iranian Wives

  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships · 2026-04-10

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Marital relationship quality is a strong predictor of overall health, making it a critical target for prevention and intervention efforts. In Iran, rapid cultural shifts have reshaped marital dynamics, highlighting the need for accessible psychological support. Relational Savoring (RS), a brief attachment-based program, aims to strengthen relationship quality by guiding individuals to re-experience moments of positive connectedness. The present study is the first to evaluate a 4-week, group-based RS program in Iran among 96 female spouses, testing its effects on affective (positive emotion, relationship closeness) and cognitive (relationship satisfaction) domains at post-treatment and three-month follow-up, compared to a no-treatment control. The study also tested an exploratory research question regarding whether sharing savored memories with one’s partner between sessions had a differential impact relative to the traditional relational savoring protocol, which does not prescribe sharing. Results showed that the RS-Combined condition (pooling both savoring conditions) produced greater improvements across all outcomes at post-treatment with small effect sizes (marginal R 2 = 0.02–0.05), although these effects were not sustained at the three-month follow-up. Comparisons between the two savoring conditions (RS-No Share versus RS-Share) revealed mixed patterns: sharing was linked with stronger gains in positive emotion at post-treatment, whereas not sharing was associated with greater improvements in relationship closeness and satisfaction at post-treatment. We interpret these findings to suggest preliminary promise for RS, particularly RS-No Share, in improving short-term outcomes for Iranian wives. Future work should examine ways of prolonging the effects observed in this study.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>Saliendo adelante</i> : Understanding trauma and resilience in immigrant families from Central America

  Journal of Traumatic Stress · 2026-04-13

  articleSenior author

  Fleeing extreme poverty and violence and seeking safety and survival, families have increasingly migrated to the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Limited scholarship has explored the transgenerational transmission of strategies for resilience, survival, and agency among Central American migrant families. Using constructivist grounded theory methods, this study sought to better understand these processes by exploring the transgenerational transmission of trauma and resilience in the context of forced migration and family separation within a sample of 24 mothers and youth who migrated to the United States from Central America. The findings reveal three important concepts that influence how trauma and resilience are transmitted across generations among families who have recently migrated from Central America. Youth and mothers described the transmission of trauma and resilience as multidirectional with impacts across generations. Participants also described experiencing ongoing systemic traumatization in the form of oppressive social, political, legal, and economic systems that perpetuate traumatic stress and cause family separation. Finally, the concept of saliendo adelante, or "moving forward," was found to be both a process and a goal for mothers and youth, constituting an important form of transgenerational resilience. Results from this study elucidate the complex and intersecting processes that contribute to the transgenerational transmission of trauma and introduce the concept of saliendo adelante, by which immigrant families transmit family goals and build resilience in the face of adversity.

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Recent grants

• NIH Grant F32AG03231001

  NIH · $45k · 2009

Frequent coauthors

• Patricia A. Smiley

  Pomona College

  52 shared

• Hannah F. Rasmussen

  University of Southern California

  39 shared

• Nikil Dutt

  38 shared

• Amir M. Rahmani

  36 shared

• David A. Sbarra

  University of Arizona

  30 shared

• Sina Labbaf

  27 shared

• Jocelyn Lai

  22 shared

• Ramesh Jain

  University of California, Irvine

  21 shared

Education

• B.A.

  UC Berkeley

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology

  Yale University

• Other, Clinical Internship

  UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

• Other, NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship

  University of Arizona