Ariadna Forray, MD
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About
Titles
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Chief, Psychological Medicine Section, Psychiatry; Director, Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers, Psychiatry; Yale Medical Director, ACCESS Mental Health for MomsBiography
Dr. Ariadna Forray received her B.A. in biology and neuroscience from Bryn Mawr and her M.D. from Harvard. She completed her residency training in psychiatry at Yale and has been a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry since then. She is the Director of the Center for Wellness of Women and Mothers, a reproductive psychiatry research program. As a principal investigator and co-investigator on numerous federally funded grants, she has developed and implemented addiction treatment interventions for perinatal patients.
Clinically, Dr. Forray is a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she is the Section Chief of Psychological Medicine, which consists of traditional and proactive psychiatric consult services on medical and surgical inpatient units and over 15 integrated psychiatry and behavioral health programs in diverse medical and surgical outpatient settings. She is also the Yale Director for the ACCESS Mental Health for Moms program in Connecticut, which provides psychiatric expertise and consultation to medical providers treating perinatal women presenting with mental health or substance use concerns.
Appointments
Psychiatry
Associate Professor on TermPrimary
Other Departments & Organizations
Education & Training
- Resident
- Yale School of Medicine
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychiatry
- Yale School of Medicine
- Intern
- Yale-New Haven Hospital
- MD
- Harvard Medical School
- BA
- Bryn Mawr College, Biology - Neuroscience
Research
The overarching goal of my research is to further our understanding of the effect of reproductive hormones on the psychophysiology of women throughout their reproductive years and its intersection with substance use disorders. My current research focuses on the development of novel treatments for perinatal substance use that lead to sustained abstinence beyond the perinatal period.
Overview
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Academic Achievements and Community Involvement
Clinical Care
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Overview
Ariadna Forray, MD, is a psychiatrist who treats medical and surgical patients at Yale New Haven Hospital who have psychiatric needs. She specializes in psychiatric and substance-use disorders in unique and complex patient populations that include pregnant and postpartum women, and adults living with sickle cell disease.
One of the few psychiatrists in the U.S. with expertise in mental health issues in patients with sickle cell disease, Dr. Forray was recruited in 2012 as the psychiatry director of a newly developed, interdisciplinary Yale Medicine Adult Sickle Cell Program, which successfully transitioned care from high-cost inpatient and emergency care to integrated outpatient services, and led to improved care and services.
Dr. Forray also has a keen interest in mental health in women across the reproductive lifespan, which she says was inspired by an experience during her residency, when a patient was transferred to the ICU following an intentional overdose. “This was a 30-year-old postpartum woman, who in the two months following the birth of her first child had attempted suicide twice and failed three different medication trials with seven different medications,” Dr. Forray says. “When I met her, I was struck by how much she was suffering—she was restless, she couldn’t sleep, she was extremely anxious, and ruminated over her baby’s well-being to a degree that was unhealthy.” The case inspired her to learn more about why only some postpartum women develop mental health issues, what role hormones might play, and how such struggles might impact a newborn infant. “It was this curiosity combined with the desire to help women during this vulnerable period of their life that defined my path in psychiatry,” she says.
In addition to her other roles, Dr. Forray is the director of the Center for Well-being of Women and Mothers, a reproductive psychiatry research program at Yale, where she studies novel treatments for perinatal substance use. She is currently working on a study that is evaluating two models to help obstetrical providers deliver substance-use treatment to pregnant women with an opioid use disorder across 12 sites in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Clinical Specialties
Fact Sheets
Quit Smoking
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Board Certifications
Addiction Medicine (Preventive Medicine)
- Certification Organization
- AB of Preventive Medicine
- Original Certification Date
- 2019
Psychiatry
- Certification Organization
- AB of Psychiatry & Neurology
- Original Certification Date
- 2010
Links & Media
News
- June 03, 2024Source: NBC TV-WGRZ
Doctors Have a New Way to Treat Postpartum Depression
- March 20, 2024
The evolution of psychiatry
- November 14, 2023
Ariadna Forray, MD, Embraces Diversity as a Bilingual and Bicultural Reproductive Psychiatrist at Yale
- August 31, 2023
Forray Featured Speaker at Capitol Hill Briefing