Jennifer Freeman

About

Jennifer Freeman is a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior (Research) at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She serves as the Director of the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center (PARC) at Bradley Hospital, where she has spent over two decades developing research, training, and clinical programs focused on pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety. Her work emphasizes innovative care models, community training, and the integration of research and clinical practice within hospital settings. Freeman's research has been extensively funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), supporting studies on cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) for pediatric anxiety and OCD, including development of novel treatments, dissemination of effective training for community therapists, and long-term outcomes of early interventions. She has contributed significantly to understanding the principles of exposure therapy, treatment fidelity, and barriers to accessing evidence-based care, with a focus on translating research into high-quality, accessible services outside traditional clinical settings. Freeman also holds leadership roles in various committees and collaborates nationally and internationally to advance research and clinical practice in child and adolescent mental health.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Clinical psychology
• Psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Internal medicine
• Physical therapy
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• Systematic Review and Meta-analysis: An Empirical Approach to Defining Treatment Response and Remission in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

  Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · 2021 · 48 citations

  DOI

• Therapist Behavior During Exposure Tasks Predicts Habituation and Clinical Outcome in Three Randomized Controlled Trials for Pediatric OCD

  Behavior Therapy · 2020 · 25 citations

  DOI

• Precision Implementation: An Approach to Mechanism Testing in Implementation Research

  Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research · 2022-09-27 · 24 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Improving Delivery Behaviors During Exposure for Pediatric OCD: A Multiple Baseline Training Trial With Community Therapists

  Behavior Therapy · 2020 · 17 citations

  DOI

• Exposure to exposure: A protocol for leveraging exposure principles during training to address therapist-level barriers to exposure implementation

  Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2023-02-15 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Exposure therapy is a highly effective but underutilized treatment for anxiety disorders. A primary contributor to its underutilization is therapist-level negative beliefs about its safety and tolerability for patients. Given functional similarities between anxious beliefs among patients and negative beliefs among therapists, the present protocol describes how exposure principles can be leveraged during training to target and reduce therapist negative beliefs. Methods: The study will…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH064188

  NIH · $1.6M · 2009

• Family Based Treatment of Early Childhood OCD

  NIH · $954k · 2007–2012

• CBT for Pediatric OCD: Effective Therapist Behaviors and Community Training Pilot

  NIH · $937k · 2012–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Abbe Garcia

  Bradley Hospital

  243 shared

• Kristen Benito

  132 shared

• Martin E. Franklin

  72 shared

• Christine A. Conelea

  University of Minnesota System

  69 shared

• Hannah E. Frank

  Monash University

  53 shared

• Jeffrey Sapyta

  Duke University

  50 shared

• Christopher A. Flessner

  Kent State University

  46 shared

• Erin O’Connor

  John Brown University

  45 shared

Labs

• Pediatric Anxiety Research Center (PARC)PI

Similar researchers at Brown University

• Karen Furieh-148
• Rena Wingh-146
• Lawrence Priceh-132