Academic and Professional Affiliations
Dr. Sharkey is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 25 years experience working with adults, children, adolescents and families in a variety of inpatient and outpatient community mental health and hospital settings. She is an adjunct faculty member in the School of Social Work at Loyola University where she teaches in the graduate program, and she has also taught at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. She serves as secretary on the board of The Intrapsychic Humanism Society.
Academic and Clinical Training
Dr. Sharkey received her masters and doctoral degrees from the School of Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. Her clinical internships were in inpatient and outpatient psychiatry at major urban hospitals working with children, adolescents, adults, and families struggling with a wide range of problems. She has worked with clients to address issues related to depression, anxiety, grief and loss, trauma, adjustment/life transition issues, self-esteem, and relationship issues.
Since 1994, Dr. Sharkey has been on the clinical staff of the Stone Institute of Psychiatry at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Katherine Wright Center at Illinois Masonic Hospital, and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. Dr. Sharkey has been in private practice since 1996, providing psychotherapy services to adults, adolescents, and couples in the Chicago area.
During the course of her doctoral training at Loyola University Chicago, Dr. Sharkey
received numerous awards and honors. She was selected by the Doctoral Committee to be the founding editor-in-chief of one of the first peer-reviewed journals of social work student scholarship in the country, Praxis: Where Reflection & Practice Meet. Dr. Sharkey was also awarded the President’s Medallion, the University’s highest graduate student honor based on scholarship, service, and leadership. She was also the recipient of an Arthur J. Schmitt Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation research on how clients use therapeutic relationships to cope with loss. Dr. Sharkey was also awarded a doctoral teaching fellowship in the School of Social Work.
Postdoctoral Training in Inner Humanism
Dr. Sharkey is committed to providing the most effective treatment based on the
advances of Inner Humanism. She has been involved in ongoing professional
development and consultation since becoming a licensed clinical social worker
in 1996.
Presentations and Teaching
As an adjunct faculty member, Dr. Sharkey has taught graduate level courses in the School of Social Work at Loyola University Chicago and at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Dr. Sharkey has presented at local and national conferences on the topics of the reflective use of theory in clinical practice, trauma-informed treatment, promoting student scholarship in social work education, and the theoretical principles and practice of Inner Humanism.
