Sarah E Fitzpatrick

Sarah E. Fitzpatrick is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Yale's Department of Psychiatry and Yale Child Study Center, with a dual appointment in Social Work. She maintains a private practice in New Haven and specializes in psychodynamic, family systems, and attachment theories. Her clinical expertise includes family/couples therapy, parent-infant attachment therapy, perinatal mental health, and grief counseling. She has held roles in clinical care, training, and administration at Yale since 1998, including contributions to the Minding the Baby program and the Yale Child Study Center's Psychiatry Training Program. Her current work includes co-leading a Couples Therapy Seminar for Yale trainees.

Education:

• MSW, University of Kansas (1998)
• Post-MSW Fellowship, Yale School of Medicine (1999)
• Clinical Supervision Certification, Smith College (2006)

Research Interests: Her research focuses on neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly autism and Fragile X syndrome, with emphasis on pharmacotherapy development, genetic pathways, and translational clinical applications. She utilizes zebrafish models for high-throughput genetic analysis and explores dopaminergic/neuroimmune mechanisms in autism pathogenesis.

Recent Work Trends: Recent publications (2021–2024) highlight advancements in autism gene functional analysis, pharmacological candidate identification, and pediatric quality-of-life assessments in genetic syndromes. She has contributed to understanding aggression in neurodevelopmental disorders and optimizing clinical trial methodologies for rare genetic conditions.

Advising & Training: Supervises clinicians and residents in family systems therapy and couples counseling. Develops educational content such as Bowen’s Family Systems lectures for Yale’s Child Psychiatry program.

Labs/Teams: Active contributor to the Minding the Baby program (interdisciplinary maternal-child health initiative) and collaborates with the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program.