Department of Psychiatry of UMass Chan Medical School / UMass Memorial Health Care Deaf Behavioral Health Team

The Department of Psychiatry has a focused commitment to conducting research through Deaf and Deaf-competent clinical researchers to increase understanding, develop and evaluate new behavioral therapy interventions, and address behavioral health disparities through research, clinical, and educational initiatives, including by sponsoring the DeafYES! Center for Deaf Empowerment and Recovery. Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH is Professor and Chair of the Department and he has been a sponsor and led the development of the current Deaf Behavioral Health Team. Of note, he is an addiction psychiatrist internationally recognized for his research and leadership in addressing co-occurring addiction and mental illness, including his research on innovative therapies for co-occurring trauma and addiction amongst Deaf clients. Melissa L. Anderson, PhD is hearing psychologist, clinical researcher, and Director of DeafYES! She conducts research on best therapy approaches for working with Deaf clients, and is currently working on a project with a team of Deaf and hearing clinicians and community members to develop a digital American Sign Language therapy manual for treating trauma and addiction. In the past year, DeafYES! kickstarted a new postdoctoral psychology training program and recruited our first postdoctoral fellow and designated interpreter. Wyatte C. Hall, Ph.D. is a Deaf postdoctoral fellow researching the systematic experiences of language deprivation within the Deaf community, and the cascade effect of such deprivation on behavioral health issues, including mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, and addiction. Marlene Elliott, CI/CT is a designated interpreter and research scholar. Since 1988 she has specialized in mental health interpreting and working with Deaf professionals. She is also an interpreter trainer focused on working interpreters using Deaf-centered approaches, interactive theoretical models, and social justice approaches to learning. Teresa Mitchell, Ph.D., is a research psychologist who studies visual perception and attention in Deaf children and adults. Her publications and research projects have focused on how individuals with hearing loss use their sense of vision to compensate for the absence of auditory information, including with EEG and eye-tracking technology. In addition to the research and training activities described above, DeafYES! provides outpatient individual and couples therapy for Deaf clients across Massachusetts. Our services are provided in American Sign Language, or in the preferred language of the client. All of our clinical services are offered through the UMass Memorial Medical Center Ambulatory Psychiatry Service, located within Hahnemann Family Health.