Department welcomes new child psychiatry faculty member

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences recently welcomed Assistant Professor Anne Gearity, PhD, as the newest member of the child psychiatry faculty. Gearity is transitioning from an adjunct faculty role with the department and had previously taught for more than 20 years at the U’s School of Social Work. She has also been on the faculty of the U’s Infant and Early Child Mental Health Certificate program in the Institute for Child Development.

In this new role, she will focus her time on providing psychotherapy supervision using a developmental/dynamic lens, as well as expanding awareness of development in psychiatric assessments.  She is excited about the transition because it allows her to help fellows integrate how family and community contexts impact and influence child wellbeing and illness. In addition, she hopes to support inclusion of trauma research and knowledge into both assessment and programs.

Accomplished author
In 2009, Gearity wrote, Developmental Repair: A Treatment Manual, to complete a Bush Foundation Grant awarded to the Washburn Center for Children in Minneapolis, MN. The book is a manual for intervention with behaviorally challenged and challenging young children that’s used throughout Minnesota. In 2015, the Casey Family Foundations identified Developmental Repair as a “promising model.” That same year, the Washburn Center received the Program Excellence and Innovation Award by the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs as a result of its publication.

Gearity earned her PhD in Clinical Social Work from the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, IL, then spent three years as a faculty member for the Institute. She earned her Master’s in Social Work from the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Work of New York, NY. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker who has run an independent mental health practice that serves children, adolescents and adults since 1987.