Brehm was born in Roanoke, Virginia and earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Duke University. She went to Harvard University for an AM in clinical psychology and then returned to Duke to earn a PhD in clinical psychology.[3]
She served as the 2007 president of the APA.[3] During her term, the organization created the Presidential Task Force on Integrative Healthcare for an Aging Population, APA-SRCD Task Force on Math and Science Education (with the Society for Research in Child Development) and the Presidential Task Force on Institutional Review Boards and Psychological Science.[3]
Personal
Brehm met psychologist Jack Brehm [pl] when she went to work for him as a graduate assistant. The couple got married in 1968. Though they divorced several years later, they continued to work together and even co-authored a book.[7] Jack Brehm constructed the theory of reactance and Sharon adapted it to the clinical psychology setting.[8]
In a 2013 interview, Brehm discussed her Alzheimer's disease diagnosis, the early symptoms of which had appeared in 2010.[9] She died from complications of the disease in 2018.
Works
Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control (with J. W. Brehm, 1981)
Intimate Relationships (with Rowland Miller and Daniel Perlman, multiple editions)