Tina Payne Bryson
Tina Payne Bryson is an American psychotherapist, a licensed clinical social worker with a doctorate from the University of Southern California, and the founder of The Center for Connection in Pasadena. With Daniel Siegel she co-wrote The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. She has a page here because she is consistently erased from the credit for the phrase those books made famous.
Who they are
"Name it to tame it" appears in The Whole-Brain Child as one of twelve strategies for parents. It is almost always attributed to Siegel alone. The book is co-authored, and restoring a missing co-author is the kind of correction this publication should make without being asked. It costs one clause.
Keep the slogan and the research apart. The phrase is Siegel and Bryson's. The laboratory work everybody means when they repeat it belongs to Matthew Lieberman's group at UCLA, and the two have separate pages on this site for exactly that reason. A memorable phrase is not a finding, and the phrase travelled a great deal further than the evidence behind it.
Key papers
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The Whole-Brain Child, where "name it to tame it" appears as one of twelve strategies. Not read here, and the endnotes were not obtained.
Key ideas
The credit correction is the point of the page, and it is the only claim on it made with confidence.
What the slogan promises, that naming a feeling reliably calms it, is a stronger claim than the research supports, and that gap is examined on the page for the phrase rather than here.
Her clinical work is described, not endorsed, and nothing here is parenting advice.
Concepts on this site
The Four Attachment Styles, adjacent territory, which has no page on this site yet
Find them elsewhere
Nothing confirmed. A search was run and no website or account could be tied to this person with enough certainty to publish. A name match on its own is not evidence, and a wrong link here would be worse than none.
Checked 2026-09-11. Handles and affiliations go out of date, so treat this block as a snapshot rather than a standing fact.
Sources
- Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The Whole-Brain Child. Not read in this pass.
- Vault verification record, 2026-09-11. Affiliation confirmed.