Elisa Bronfman

Elisa Bronfman received her PhD from Boston College in 1993. She has been a staff psychologist at Boston Children's Hospital since 1998 and is currently a senior staff psychologist in the Transition program of the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program and is the Psychology Leader of the Family Medical Coping Initiative. The Boston Children’s Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program treats young people who have complex congenital or acquired heart disease and their families. The Family Medical Coping Initiative aims to enhance patient and family coping with medical conditions and care through educational presentations and resources for families and caregivers, available on YouTube, as well as continuing education programs for health professionals. Dr. Bronfman is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is also the first author of AMBIANCE, a research tool used to assess parent-infant attachment. She trains international attachment groups to use her tool, with her colleagues Drs. Karlen Lyons-Ruth and Sheri Madigan. The most recent training occurred in March of 2024. She is a coauthor in publications appearing in both peer-reviewed and nonpeer-reviewed journals and books on a range of topics including Working with Parents in Child Psychotherapy, with Johanna Sagarin, PhD.