Chapter 24 - The Making of a Developmental Psychopathologist

Summary

This chapter chronicles the professional trajectory of Dante Cicchetti from his undergraduate years as a psychology major at the University of Pittsburgh through obtaining his PhD in Clinical and Developmental Psychology at the University of Minnesota. It describes his longitudinal research on the organization of development in infants and children with Down Syndrome. Subsequently, while an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard, his first academic job, he began groundbreaking longitudinal research on the etiology, intergenerational transmission, and developmental sequelae of child maltreatment. He also initiated theoretical work on the discipline of developmental psychopathology. At the Mt. Hope Family Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester, genetic, epigenetic, and biological research were implemented and linked to psychosocial and resilient functioning of child maltreatment and the offspring of depressed mothers. Evidence-based preventive interventions were conducted and shown to improve the functioning of maltreated youngsters and young offspring of depressed caregivers.