Teresa Ostler
Associate Professor
Office location: 315 SSW
Phone number:217-244-5233
Email: tjacobse@uiuc.edu
Educational Background
Dr. Ostler received her bachelor’s degree and PhD in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1973 and 1984, respectively. She joined the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois as an Associate Professor in 2003, after 9 years as a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Ostler is also a licensed clinical psychologist. Her research focuses on parent-child attachment relationships, individuals with major mental illness as parents, children of parents with major mental illness and substance use problems, and children in foster care.
Research and Practice Interests
Dr. Ostler has research interests that examine attachment across the lifespan, developmental psychopathology, major mental illness and parenting, children in foster care, and children of parents with major mental illness.
Current Research
Her current research focuses on mental health functioning of children of parents who abuse methamphetamine. as well as attachment in children living in foster care and parents with major mental illness.
Recent Publications
Ostler T, Haight WL (forthcoming, 2007). Young foster children’s extreme responses to visits: Can maternal containment help? In: J Solomon & C George (Eds.). Attachment Disorganization, 2nd Edition. Guildford Press.
Haight WL, Ostler T, Black J, Sheridan K, Kingery L (in press). A child’s-eye view of parent methamphetamine abuse: Helping children to succeed in foster care and beyond. Children and Youth Services Review.
Brunette M, Jacobsen T (2006): Children of parents with mental illness: Outcomes and interventions. In V. Hendrick (Ed): Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders in Pregnancy and the Postpartum. Humana Press, pp. 197-227.
Haight W, Jacobsen T, Black J, Kingery L, Sheridan K, Mulder C (2005): “In these bleak days”: Parental methamphetamine abuse in a rural Midwestern community. Children and Youth Services Review.
Jacobsen, T. (2004): Mentally ill mothers in the parenting role: clinical management and treatment. In M. Goepfert, J. Webster, & M.V. Seeman (Eds). Parental psychiatric disorder: Distressed parents and their families. 2nd Edition: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 8, pp. 112-122.