Jessica Borelli

Associate Professor of Psychological Science UC Irvine

  • Irvine CA

Jessie Borelli's research focuses on the links between close relationships and mental health

Contact

UC Irvine

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Media

Biography

Jessie Borelli is an Associate Professor of Psychological Science at University of California, Irvine. She is a clinical psychologist specializing 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.

Jessie Borelli also maintains a small private practice where she sees children, adolescents, adults, couples and families, with a specialization in the areas of anxiety disorders, eating disorders, adoption, and parenting (www.compass-therapy.com).

Areas of Expertise

Attachment
Parenting
Developmental
Mental Health
Health
Clinical
Parent-Child Relationships

Education

Yale University

PhD

Clinical Psychology

UC Berkeley

BA

Media Appearances

Cheapest Car Insurance in California

WalletHub  online

2025-05-05

UC Irvine professors Jessie Borelli and Frederico Vaca said, “Car insurance companies base their premium prices on data regarding likelihood of car collision or damages. … [they] “pour over” their loss data (i.e., insurance payouts) and perpetually assess risk of in the changing landscape of driving and vehicle technology. They are also concerned with the amount of exposure a particular driver may have, that is how much driving a particular driver does and with relation to their insured car, how much time the car is actually on the roadways exposed to risk of a crash.”

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Savor The Good Stuff & Rewire Your Brain For Connection With This Journaling Approach

MindBodyGreen  online

2025-04-27

"[In parenting], there's a really important part about empathy, which is that it has to stay focused on your child. One really big mistake that parents can make—and it's easy for this to happen—it can become about you quite quickly," says Relational savoring helps parents recognize the difference between their mental state and their child's, ultimately allowing them to better respond to their child. … Dr. Jessica Borelli, professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine.

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This Simple Therapy Technique Can Strengthen All Your Relationships

Oprah Daily  online

2025-04-07

Jessica Borelli, professor of psychological science, coined the term "relational savoring," and says it's a tool to help people savor their relationships. “I’ve been trying to study this idea that relationships can be a source of healing, and that we can harness the strength in relationships to bring about positive change in people’s lives,” says Borelli.

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Research Grants

A Comprehensive Parent-Child Prevention Program for Youth Violence: The YEA/MADRES Program

Centers for Disease Control - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

2017 - 2020
Principal Investigator: Nancy Guerra, Ph.D.
Co-Principal Investigator: Jessica L. Borelli, Ph.D.

Articles

I “get” you, babe: Reflective functioning in partners transitioning to parenthood

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Jessica L. Borelli, Arietta Slade, Corey Pettit, Dana Shai

2020

Reflective functioning (RF) is a construct that has gained tremendous traction in the developmental psychology literature, demonstrating robust associations with parent–child attachment and interactional quality. Although theorists argue that RF should have meaningful links with relationship quality across the life span, to date this construct has not been applied to the study of adult romantic partnerships.

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Flattening the Mental Health Curve in the Time of COVID-19: A Call to Action for Clinical Psychological Science

PsyArXiv

2020

COVID-19 presents humanity with its greatest social, economic, and medical challenges of the 21st century. Because COVID-19 has already begun to precipitate huge increases in mental health problems, we believe that clinical psychological science must play a leadership role in guiding a national response to this secondary crisis.

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Reflective functioning and empathy among mothers of school-aged children: Charting the space between.

American Psychological Association

Borelli, J. L., Stern, J. A., Marvin, M. J., Smiley, P. A., Pettit, C., & Samudio, M.

2020

Parental child-focused reflective functioning (RF)—understanding children’s behavior as a function of mental states—and parental empathy—understanding, resonating with, and feeling concern for children’s emotions—have each been linked to sensitive caregiving and children’s attachment security in separate studies, but they have been neither directly compared nor have researchers tested whether they interact in predicting child outcomes.

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