Linda C. Mayes, MD, is a pediatrician and child and adult psychoanalyst who cares for infants, young children, and their families. She focuses on developmental and behavioral concerns, especially when children have faced medical complications, early adversity, or exposure to substances before birth.

Dr. Mayes works with families whose children may have difficulty with attention, emotional regulation, or bonding with parents and caregivers. She helps parents understand their child’s behavior and development, and offers assessments and therapies that support both the child and family. Her clinical work includes programs that visit families in their homes and provide early support during pregnancy and the first years of life.

“Pediatrics is about helping children and adolescents have the best start in life that we can support—and helping them flourish,” she says. “Working with children provides an opportunity to instill lifelong healthy behaviors. I also enjoy physiology—and when children are sick, they can change very quickly in both ways—improving or worsening and knowing physiology is key to being able to quickly adapt to their needs. I was—and still am—attracted to seeing development unfold, often very quickly. While there. is sorrow and very difficult challenges, pediatrics is ultimately about hope and promise.”

As the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology and chair of the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Mayes leads multidisciplinary teams that link clinical care with research. Her work explores how stress, substance use, and economic hardship affect brain development, self-control, and parent-child relationships. She has also developed and studied family-based interventions, such as intensive home-visiting programs for new parents.

“I wanted to be a physician scientist—to combine my academic interests with patient care and translate what I was doing in my research into how I care for patients,” she says. “An example during my pediatric residency was especially formative. I made an observation in the intensive care nursery about a drug interaction that seemed to be causing more complications for very sick infants. I was able to study that possible interaction in the laboratory with animal models and show that our standard drug treatment slowed down the metabolism of another needed drug, and thus, the infants paradoxically became more ill. My research led to a change in practice in our care for preterm infants—and I saw how basic research can directly influence day to day practice.”

Dr. Mayes earned her medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She completed a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in neonatology at Vanderbilt, followed by pediatric research and child development fellowships at Yale School of Medicine. She also completed advanced training in psychoanalysis at Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis.