Diana Lynn Barnes, PsyD

Dr. Diana Lynn Barnes, Psy.D., PMH-C, LMFT practices in Los Angeles, California. She has been a forensic expert in the specialized area of maternal mental illness for over 20 years. She is frequently retained by legal counsel on cases of pregnancy denial and neonaticide, postpartum psychosis, and infanticide; as well as child abuse and neglect where a child/children may have been harmed. She is on the editorial advisory board for Forensic Scholars. Dr. Barnes has been specializing in women’s reproductive mental health for over 25 years and has widely published on all facets of women’s mental health around the child-bearing years. She published the guidelines for the assessment and treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders for the Perinatal Advisory Council of Los Angeles. She is the editor and contributing author of Women’s Reproductive Mental Health Across the Lifespan, published by Springer in 2014. She is a past president of Postpartum Support International and currently sits on their Advisory council. In 2015, Dr. Barnes was appointed as the mental health consultant to the California Commission on the Status of Maternal Mental Health and in 2016 to the California Maternal Mortality Review Panel. She currently Chairs the Special Interest Group on Forensics and Maternal Mental Health for the International Marcé Society. In 2009, Dr. Barnes received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eli Lilly Foundation for her extraordinary contributions to the field of maternal mental health and child-bearing-related mood disorders. She maintains a private practice in the greater Los Angeles area.