Speakers
Speakers
Introducing the speakers
Bas Agterberg
Bas Agterberg is curator at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. He is an expert of the use of audio visual collections for (historical) research. In the institute he is involved in collection policy, acquisitions and presentation of the collection in the museum and programming of Sound and Vision. Projects include research projects such as Transnational Radio Encounters, the online platform Radio Encounters, the celebration of 100 years Polygoon Journaal, newsreel of 70 years of Dutch Television. Bas Agterberg has a background in Film and Television Studies. He worked as a film producer, taught various courses at Utrecht University and Utrecht School of Arts.
Dr. Anne Bakker
Dr. Anne Bakker, works as coordinator at the department of Traumacare for hospital staff in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (OLVG hospital). She is a guest researcher at the department of psychiatry from Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam (Psychotrauma research group). Her research and practical work both focus on supporting employees after occupational trauma. Anne is board member of Dutch Psychotrauma Association (NtVP) and chair of the NtVP SIG Early support and interventions.
Dr. Iva Bicanic
Iva Bicanic is a clinical psychologist specialized in the field of sexual trauma. She is head of the National Psychotrauma Centre at the University Medical Centre Utrecht. Also, she is the director of the multidisciplinary Sexual Assault Centre located in 16 regions across the Netherlands for acute victims of rape. She finished her PhD on psychobiological correlates of rape in female adolescents.
Dr. Marco Boks
Dr. Marco Boks is a psychiatrist and researcher at the University Medical Centre (UMC) where he leads the stress and trauma program. One of the key questions of his research is what the biological mechanisms are that underlie the increased risk to many psychiatric and somatic disorders in individuals that suffered traumatic life events. One way to investigate this is to measure changes in the working of DNA. These epigenetic changes can be monitored using epigenetic clocks that report of several aging mechanism. In this presentation he will summarize the evidence
Prof. dr. Eric Bui
Eric initially received an MD and a PhD from the University of Toulouse (France). He is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Caen Normandy (France), and adjunct investigator at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA) where he served in different leadership capacities as a Harvard Medical School faculty, for nearly ten years. His research focuses specifically on understanding the mechanism and improving the treatment of anxiety and stress-related conditions, including using psychopharmacotherapy and mind-body approaches. To date, he has published over 200 scientific articles and book chapters, and edited two textbooks in the field of anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and prolonged grief disorder. He served as President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (2020-2021), and currently serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, and as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Mental Health.
Dr. Bruno M. Coimbra
Dr. Bruno M. Coimbra is a psychologist and research coordinator at the Program for Research and Care on Violence and PTSD, Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. He obtained his Ph.D. on the relationship between psychosocial stressors, such as racial discrimination and neighborhood disorder, and cellular aging. During his Ph.D., he Dr. Bruno M. Coimbra studies on PTSD following sexual assault and aging biomarkers. He worked for many years with vulnerable populations in low-income settings in São Paulo. As a postdoctoral researcher in Brazil and a guest researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Dr. Coimbra is investigating moral injury, mental health, and COVID-19-related stressors among healthcare workers in Brazilian hospitals.
Dr. Hannah Comtesse
Dr. Hannah Comtesse works as a senior lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. She received her PhD in 2016 from the Marburg University and visited the Traumatic Grief group at the ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre as a researcher in 2021. Her research focuses on the mental health impacts of climate change perceptions, the assessment and treatment of grief disorders, and the social determinants of the mental health of refugees, for which she also received a research grant from the German Research Foundation. She further coordinates a large multi-center clinical trial on the treatment of prolonged grief disorder. She is also a licensed cognitive-behavioral therapist and her clinical work is focused mainly on treating grief-related conditions.
Dr. Manik Djelantik
Dr. Manik Djelantik was trained as a psychiatrist at UMC Utrecht and combined her education with scientific research at the ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre. She conducts research on the impact of stressful events and social factors on psychological symptoms by using innovative analysis methods and different perspectives on psychopathology. In 2019, as a researcher she visited the Psychiatry department of the Harvard Medical School, Massachussets General Hospital,. She also conducted transcultural research in collaboration with Udayana University in Bali, Indonesia. On 6 March 2020, she received her PhD on the topic “Traumatic Grief: The relationship between complicated grief, post-traumatic stress and depression symptoms in survivors after traumatic and non-traumatic losses.” She is trained as a psychotrauma therapist and has done trauma treatments with among others bereaved families, veterans, victims of human trafficking and refugees. From October 2020, Manik is working as a psychiatrist at the Care Line Development in Perspective at UMC Utrecht, where she combines her clinical work with scientific research and teaching and, since 2022, became Principal Investigator of the healthcare program Trauma and Loss in context.
Prof. dr. Grete Dyb
Grete Dyb MD, PhD is a professor and vice-dean at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo and Head of research at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, Oslo, Norway. She has been Principal Investigator of numerous studies on childhood trauma and PTSD in children and adolescents and served as teacher and supervisor of bachelor, master, PhD and post doc students for three decades. She is past president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, and served on the ISTSS` Board of Directors for six years. The last 12 years she has served as co-chair and chair on regional and national committees on medical and health research ethics.
After the terror attack in Norway in 2011, she initiated the Utøya Study, a longitudinal interview study of youth survivors of the terror attack and their parents. The study now comprise data from four data waves over the ten-year period. The research has resulted in more than 60 papers published in peer-reviewed international and national journals. The study assessed levels of posttraumatic stress reactions, anxiety and depression, somatic complaints and sleep problems over time and aims to provide more knowledge on important factors for resilience and healing.
Prof. dr. Veroni Eichelsheim
prof. dr. Veroni Eichelsheim is senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) in Amsterdam, and endowed professor in Developmental Psychology at the University of Groningen. Her research interests and expertise center around family functioning, the quality of social and familial relationships, parenting and upbringing as associated with deviant behavior and victimisation over the life course and across generations. She has a special interest in children and adolescents who spend part of their childhood in institutions. During the pandemic, with her team she obtained funding to study to what extent and how Covid-19 restrictions impacted domestic violence in families.
Prof. dr. Ask Elklit
Ask Elklit, M. Psych., is Professor of clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychology at the Southern Danish University and director of the National Centre for Psychotraumatology. He is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, Professor Elklit was the co-founder of the first Danish center for rape victims and has conducted research on many trauma types and populations (maltreated children, victims of violence, disasters, workplace violence, serious illnesses and war). He also studied trauma rehabilitation and trauma in various cultures.
Iris Engelhard
Iris Engelhard is professor of Clinical Psychology at Utrecht University. She leads an innovative research program that tackles academic and clinical questions on the topics of posttraumatic stress disorder and anxiety-related disorders. Her research has made a unique contribution to the understanding of the etiology and treatment of these disorders, using novel, rigorous experimental and prospective methods, and a translational approach where basic cognitive science is in the service of applied research that seeks to improve mental health.
Dr. Rodrigo A. Figueroa
Rodrigo A. Figueroa, MD, MHA, is an Associate Clinical Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile School of Medicine, where he founded the Trauma and DissociaIon Unit and the Psychological First Aid-ABCDE Certification Course. He is also a Visiting Professor and PhD candidate in the “Neurobiological Mechanisms of PrevenIon and Treatment in Trauma and PTSD” program under the leadership of Professor Miranda Olff at the Amsterdam UMC. Dr Figueroa actively collaborates with the Millennium InsItute for Intelligent Healthcare Engineering to develop AI-based solutions for psychiatry.
Thomas Le François
Thomas Le François is a PhD student at the University of Caen in Normandy, France. His research topic concerns the potential underlying brain processes in individuals who suffer from symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and grief-related emotion regulation processes. He primarily focusses on whether mindfulness meditation training reduces grief-related symptoms and how this links to changes in functional connectivity of brain regions.
Rina Ghafoerkhan
Rina Ghafoerkhan, MSc., is a psychologist, researcher, and humanitarian aid worker. She is specialized in mental healthcare for displaced populations, in particular for those who have faced sexual violence and exploitation. In the past she has worked in various (post-)conflict settings as a mental health advisor, trainer and therapist. Currently, she is employed at ARQ Centre’45 where she offers psychotherapy and bodily-oriented therapy to survivors of sex trafficking and people identifying as LGB+. Affiliated with Utrecht University, she is finishing her dissertation on improving the mental health of displaced populations resettled in the Netherlands. She is editor in chief of the scientific journal Intervention, focussed on mental health and psychosocial support in areas of conflict and natural disasters.
Dr. Ellen Gielkens
Dr. Ellen Gielkens is psychologist at Mondriaan Mental Health Center and senior researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Her expertise is on trauma focused treatment and eye movement desensitization in older adults with psychiatric disorders and multimorbidity.
Juul Gouweloos-Trines
Juul Gouweloos-Trines (she/her) works as a licensed mental health care psychologist and advisor at ARQ IVP, part of ARQ National Psychotrauma Center. She treats people who have experienced traumatic incidents at work and suffer from a PTSD. For instance, police officers, fire-fighters or healthcare workers. Additionally, in the first days and weeks after a potentially traumatic event, she provides supportive interventions to promote resilience and recovery. At ARQ IVP, an important aspect of work is prevention, for instance also by offering yearly Mental Check Up’s and providing education and information about the importance of social support at work. Juul Gouweloos-Trines obtained a PhD in the field of psychosocial support after crises and disasters.
Simon Groen
Simon Groen is an anthropologist and senior researcher at De Evenaar, Center for Transcultural Psychiatry at GGZ Drenthe that offers mental health care to clients with a migration background. He introduced the Cultural Interview at De Evenaar, that became standard procedure of the clinical assessment. The Cultural Interview was one of the questionnaires that preceded the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI). Simon participated in the international field trial of the CFI that was published in The British Journal of Psychiatry. In 2019, he obtained a PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Subject of his dissertation was the relationship between psychotrauma and cultural identity, one of the core components of the CFI. Currently, one of the research themes in Simon’s work is traumatic grief in the research project Let’s talk about grief.
Rick de Haart
Rick de Haart, MSc. works as a licensed health care psychologist at the Trauma Center of GGZ Drenthe in Beilen, the Netherlands. As a clinician, he treats uniformed personnel with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including police officers and veterans. Rick is currently conducting his PhD research into avoidance in the development and persistence of PTSD at GGZ Drenthe, and is affiliated with the department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology of the University of Groningen.
Tamam Habib
MA Arts and Culture Studies/ Health Humanities, MSc Social Work in Health Care: Multi-disciplinary experience towards a better patient-oriented healthcare. Personally interested in mental health of disadvantaged groups, and socially committed to advocate diversity, equality, and human rights.
Demi C.D. Haverman
Demi C.D. Havermans is a psychologist at TanteLouise, Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands and a PhD student at the University of Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands. Her interest center on improving the diagnostic process of PTSD in people with dementia which hopefully will lead to further initiatives to improve the care, treatment, and research of people with dementia and co-morbid PTSD. Her expertise is on clinical manifestation and assessment of PTSD in older adults in general and specific dementia. Using an (inter)national expert panel she developed the TRAuma and DEmentia (TRADE)-interview, which is a semi-structured interview to diagnose PTSD in people with dementia.
Henriette (Jetske) van Heemstra
Henriette (Jetske) van Heemstra is currently finishing her PHD on optimizing mental health for forced migrants. She conducted several quantitative clinical and cohort studies. She was involved in the development of 7ROSES, a treatment method for increasing self-efficacy. Also, she is working as registered mental health psychologist at ARQ Centrum’45. As a clinician, she mainly provides trauma focussed treatment.
Dr. Jackie June ter Heide
Jackie June ter Heide (1972) trained as a clinical psychologist at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and as a theologian at Cambridge University, UK. She currently works as a therapist at ARQ Centrum’45, an institute for patients suffering from complex psychotrauma in the Amsterdam area, the Netherlands. There she specializes in treatment of profession-related PTSD and moral injury. Jackie June is an EMDR Europe practitioner as well as an EMDR supervisor in training, and completed a PhD comparing the safety and efficacy of EMDR therapy and stabilization in refugees with PTSD. In addition, she is a senior researcher and coordinator of the ARQ research track on complex trauma. Jackie June has published on numerous topics including EMDR therapy for refugees, Complex PTSD, the dissociative subtype, moral injury and treatment of police officers. She is currently head researcher of several studies on moral injury in military veterans funded by the Netherlands Veterans Institute. Jackie June is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology and a guest editor of a special issue on emerging treatments for moral injury of Frontiers in Psychiatry. When off work, she enjoys creative writing and has published several essays and short stories.
Dr. Charlotte Hilberdink
Dr. Lotte Hilberdink is a postdoctoral researcher in the Neuropresage team at GIP Cyceron Imagery Center in Caen, Normandy, France. In the past years, she was involved in multiple cohort studies and cross-sectional studies with a main focus on neurobiological stress functioning in posttraumatic stress disorder in populations throughout the lifespan, from adolescents to elderly. She specializes in neurobiological stress functioning for trauma-induced psychopathology risk and its potential biomarkers using neuroimaging and physiological methods to increase fundamental and clinical knowledge, with an interdisciplinary approach. She is now focusing on the effects of mindfulness training on symptom severity in prolonged grief disorder and stress-related neurobiological mechanisms that underlie potential treatment-induced changes.
Dr. Chris Hoeboer
Chris Hoeboer, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of psychiatry from the Amsterdam UMC location University of Amsterdam. Dr. Hoeboer is board member of the Dutch speaking traumatic stress society (NtVP) and program board member of the Amsterdam Public Health (APH) Global health research institute. His current research focuses on prevention, detection and treatment of trauma-related symptoms after stressful events.
Dr. Marie-José van Hoof
Dr. Marie-José van Hoof is a (child and adolescent) psychiatrist, psychotraumatherapist, orthopedagoge and CEO at iMindU GGZ. She is specialised in attachment and trauma and wrote a PhD thesis on ‘unresolved-disorganized attachment, psychopathology and the adolescent brain’ in which adolescents with sexual abuse, depressive and/or anxiety disorders and healthy controls participated. She co-authored several reporting codes and guidelines on child abuse and domestic violence as a representative from the Dutch Society for Psychiatry (NVvP) and practice standards as a representative from the Knowledgecenter on child and adolescent psychiatry. She is a board member at the Psychotherapy section of the NVvP and editor for the Dutch Journal of Psychotherapy and Kind en Adolescent Praktijk. She is a former fellow and since then mentor of the Donald J. Cohen Fellowship program at the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professionals (IACAPAP). As a former board member of the Dutch Society for psychotrauma (NtVP) she is participating in the CONNECT/ADJUST study. Besides she participates in international research on Co-Constructive Patient Simulation at Yale Child Study Center and has a research collaboration with UNSW Medicine & Health Sydney and Amsterdam UMC.
Dr. Ruud Jongedijk
Ruud Jongedijk, MD, is a psychiatrist/psychotherapist at ARQ National Psychotrauma Center and is the past medical director of ARQ Centrum’45. He is the leading trainer and supervisor in the Netherlands of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), and wrote the Dutch Handbook on NET (2014; 2021). He is a PhD student affiliated at Utrecht University and has published numerous articles on diagnostics and diagnostic models of PTSD. He recently published a historical review of trauma-related syndromes over the past two centuries (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10892680231153096).
Jeanet Karchoud
Jeanet Karchoud (Research MSc) is a PhD candidate at the Psychiatry department of Amsterdam UMC location University of Amsterdam. She works on the 2-ASAP project ‘Towards Accurate Screening and Prevention for PTSD; www.2asap.nl’, under supervision of project leader Dr. Mirjam van Zuiden and promotors Prof. Dr. Miranda Olff and Prof. dr. Rens van de Schoot.
Prof. Dr. Evaldas Kazlauskas
Prof. Evaldas is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Head of the Center for Psychotraumatology at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Prof. Kazlauskas is an immediate Past-President of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) and is among the leading experts on trauma- and stress-related disorders in Europe. For the last two decades, his work has been dedicated to the recognition of the effects of trauma on mental health, and advocating for the implementation of evidence-based trauma care for traumatized populations. His current research activities are focused on the assessment and treatment of ICD-11 stress-related disorders, the effectiveness of digital interventions for stress-related disorders, and the evaluation of the effects of trauma across the lifespan.
Dr. Rolf Kleber
Rolf Kleber, PhD, is a psychologist and emeritus professor of Psychotraumatology at Utrecht University. He has published and (co-)authored more than 300 scientific articles, chapters and books on psychotrauma. He is the past research director of ARQ National Psychotrauma Center, and is now chair of the Board of Post-Master Education for Mental Health Care Psychologists. Prof. Kleber has conducted and supervised numerous research projects on posttraumatic stress disorder treatment outcome, work related trauma and intervention programs, late sequelae of war stress, psychosocial consequences of disasters, mental health issues of refugees, and cross-cultural aspects of mental health.
Hugo Konz
Hugo Konz is a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist. I work at ARQ Centre ‘ 45, in clinical care and research, specifically with LGBTQ+ refugees with trauma-related symptoms due to identity-based violence and persecution, as well as victims of sexual violence and exploitation.
Dr. Franziska Lechner-Meichsner
Dr. Franziska Lechner-Meichsner is an Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology at Utrecht University. Her main research interest is the treatment of prolonged grief disorder and (complex) posttraumatic stress disorder and her current focus is on using innovative interventions such as Imagery Rescripting and identifying processes that make treatments work. She is also interested in culture-specific aspects of psychopathology and psychotherapy.
She previously held a post-doc position at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, where she coordinated a multi-center clinical trial on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in refugees. Prior to that, she received a grant from the German Research Foundation for a project at Columbia University, New York, on mechanisms of change in the treatment of prolonged grief disorder with Dr. Katherine Shear.
Franziska Lechner-Meichsner is also a cognitive-behavioral therapist with a specialization in psychotraumatology.
Dr. Samuel Likindikoki
Dr. Samuel Likindikoki is a Lecturer, a Researcher, and the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. He is also a practicing psychiatrist at the Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dr. Likindikoki is a prior Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar and serves as Commission in the Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People. He coordinates the Tanzania Violence Research Network (TVRN) and is a reference group member of the East African Based VaCNets Virtual Hub. His focus areas include the intersection between mental health and infectious diseases, violence prevention, and response within families and across the lifespan. He has significantly contributed to developing gender- and age-based violence-related policy guidelines, management guidelines, training packages, and training of national experts in the general population and humanitarian settings. Dr. Likindikoki is a seasoned mentor and advisor to trainees. His research expertise includes implementation science, qualitative and quantitative research methods, data analysis, and research ethics.
Arjen van Lil
Arjen van Lil, MA, is a historian and researcher at ARQ National Psychotrauma Center (Centre of Expertise for War, Persecution and Violence). With an interdisciplinary background in ancient history and military psychiatry, he focuses on the historical development of psychiatric concepts and the presupposed phenomenological universality of the notion of trauma.
Dr. Hein van Marle
Hein van Marle works as a trauma-focused psychiatrist at Arq and GGZ inGeest. He holds a research position as principal investigator at the department of Psychiatry of Amsterdam UMC. As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist his general research aim is to apply cognitive neuroscience to come to a more profound understanding of psychiatric disease and to develop novel, theory-driven treatments. His current research focuses on the role of sleep and (sleep-dependent) memory processing in the etiology and treatment of trauma-related and personality disorders. He specifically aims to translate basic research findings on memory manipulation during sleep into novel treatment strategies for patients. He uses sleep recordings and neuroimaging to elucidate the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. His research has been sponsored by several grants, including a ZonMw VENI grant, a ZonMw Off Road grant and 2 Narsad Young Investigator Grants. Clinically, Hein works at Arq and at the 5-day, inpatient treatment program for PTSD at GGZ inGeest.
Mayaris Zepeda Méndez
Mayaris Zepeda Méndez, MA, is a registered clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. She is an expert in psychodiagnostic assessment and treatment of psychotrauma. She has a broad experience in working with different traumatized patient populations in outpatient and inpatient clinic since 2004. She has developed, coordinates and researches the High Intensive Trauma Therapy program offered at the inpatient clinic of ARQ Centrum’45. She is also co-head of post-master education for the clinical psychologists in ARQ,Center 45.
Mirjam J. Mink-Nijdam
Mirjam J. Mink-Nijdam is a licensed psychologist, senior researcher and head of the research track ‘Evidence-Based Treatment’ at ARQ Centrum ’45, part of Arq National Psychotrauma Center. She is also affiliated with Amsterdam University Medical Centers as Assistant Professor. Her current research focus is on investigating innovative trauma treatments, with a strong emphasis on highly intensive programs and augmented interventions. In her clinical position, she provides treatment for patients with work-related PTSD and patients with traumatic grief. From 2003-2014 she worked at the Department of Psychiatry at Amsterdam University Medical Centers and completed her PhD, a postdoc position and her clinical training there. For her PhD, she conducted a randomized controlled trial that compared the efficacy of two psychotherapeutic methods for posttraumatic stress disorder, Brief Eclectic Psychotherapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. As a postdoc, she investigated the role of sleep in emotional memory processing and neurocognitive functioning in posttraumatic stress disorder, in collaboration with the Brain and Cognition group of the University of Amsterdam. Mirjam has been working on several research projects in the past, including the project “Psychosocial effects of threat and protection” commissioned by the Dutch Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Safety. For her clinical training, she worked at the Departments of Anxiety Disorders, Early Psychosis, Mood Disorders, and Sexuology. She is a national and international trainer in Brief Eclectic Psychotherapy for PTSD and 3MDR (Multimodular Motion-Assisted Memory Desensitization & Reconsolidation therapy). She has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and her research has been funded by ZonMw, the Board for Civil-Military Care & Research, and the Karel Doorman fund.
Prof. dr Agnes van Minnen
Agnes van Minnen, PhD, is professor in the field of the treatment of anxiety disorders and fear regulation at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She is the clinical director of PSYTREC, a clinic for the intensive treatment of (complex) PTSD. Further, she is a licensed clinical psychologist, and supervisor in the field of behavioral and cognitive therapies.The focus of her research is on treatment outcome studies, and on treatment processes that influence treatment outcome in PTSD. Besides PTSD, she is interested in the treatment of dissociative disorders.
Dr. Tine Molendijk
Dr. Tine Molendijk is an interdisciplinary-minded anthropologist – combining philosophy, psychology, anthropology and political sciences – specialized in the topics of violence, societal views on the armed forces, military culture, ethics and mental health, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury. Her PhD research focused on the role of political practices and public perceptions in moral injury in Bosnia and Afghanistan veterans. Currently, she holds affiliations with the Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA) and the Radboud University. She is project leader of a large research project on contextual dimensions of moral injury, including the development of interventions, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the most important science funding body in the Netherlands. At the NLDA, she is chair of the board of the Research Center Military Management Studies. Also, she is editorial board member of Impact, member of the NATO research task group HFM329 and project advisor for several projects on military dilemmas and trauma. Among her publications in academic, professional and popular fora is the award-winning book Moral Injury and Soldiers in Conflict: Political Practices and Public Perceptions (Routledge, 2021). More information and publications can be find on: www.tinemolendijk.nl.
Dr. Joanne Mouthaan
Dr. Joanne Mouthaan is the current president of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (www.ESTSS.org) and the Dutch Psychotrauma Association (www.NtVP.nl) and involved in international psychotraumatology consortia. She is a Senior Assistant Professor and Educational Lead at the Clinical Psychology department at Leiden University. Her research focuses on prevention and prediction of psychological responses to trauma, suicide prevention, student wellbeing and innovations for mental health care and professional education through e-health and e-learning.
Bart Nauta
Bart Nauta, MA, is a historian and researcher at ARQ National Psychotrauma Center (Centre of Expertise for War, Persecution and Violence) and a PhD student at Utrecht University. Trained as a historian, he specializes in the interdisciplinary study of mass violence, genocide and perpetrator trauma.
Prof. dr. Neil Roberts
Prof. dr. Neil Roberts is a consultant clinical psychologist with Cardiff & Vale University Health Board, where he leads a specialist service for people with PTSD and complex PTSD. He is an Honorary Professor in the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience at Cardiff University and an associate editor for the European Journal of Psychotraumatology. He was a member of the most recent ISTSS PTSD Treatment Guideline Group and has recently chaired a task force tasked with developing expert recommendations for psychological interventions for individuals with comorbid PTSD and substance use disorder for ESTSS.
He has led and contributed a number of systematic reviews for the Cochrane Library and other publications on the prevention and treatment of PTSD in a number of different populations, including those with comorbid substance abuse, military veterans, and refugees and asylum seekers. He was part of the group involved in developing and evaluating the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) and the International Trauma Inventory (ITI) for ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD. He has recently been a co-collaborator in an NIHR funded multisite RCT, evaluating a guided self-help intervention for people with mild to moderate severity PTSD and is part of a working group which is currently developing sibling interventions for people with complex PTSD and prolonged grief disorder.
Dr. Sergio Ruiz
Sergio Ruiz, MD, Psychiatrist, PhD in Neurosciences, is an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile. He is co-director of the Laboratory for Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neuromodulation and part of the academic boards of the PhD Programs of Psychotherapy and Neuroscience.
His research focuses on the development and applications of Brain-Computer Interfaces based on neuroimaging and machine learning for cognitive neuroscience and as a method for endogenous stimulation and behavioural modification in psychiatric conditions.
Dr Annette van Schagen
Dr Annette van Schagen is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at ARQ Centrum’45, an institute for patients suffering from complex psychotrauma in Oegstgeest, the Netherlands. She works at the inpatient unit, as a psychotherapist in the high intensive trauma treatments with EMDR and prolonged exposure, as well as high intensive narrative exposure therapy. She is trained in MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, and is also involved in the research track on psychedelica-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. She completed a PhD on prevalence and treatment of nightmares in patients in secondary mental healthcare and has since specialized in sleep disturbances in PTSD, and the transdiagnostic value of sleep in the maintenance of PTSD symptoms. She has published about nightmares, and sleep disturbances comorbid to psychopathology, and is teaching clinical courses on this subject. In addition Annette is the deputy head of the specialist clinical psychologist training in Leiden/Rotterdam/Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Prof. dr. Christian Schmahl
Christian Schmahl is Professor of Experimental Psychopathology and Medical Director of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. His research focus is on emotion regulation, self-injurious behavior and dissociation as well as the interaction of neurobiology and psychotherapy in Borderline Personality Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He received his M.D. in Germany at Mainz and Giessen Medical School and did his residency in Psychiatry at Freiburg Medical School and his residency in Psychosomatic Medicine at the CIMH. Since 2018 he is spokesperson of the Research Training Group “Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Psychosocial and Somatic Conditions across the Lifespan”. He has published more than 300 articles and book chapters.
Prof. dr. Ulrich Schnyder
Ulrich Schnyder, MD, is a psychiatrist and licensed psychotherapist. He is emeritus professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University of Zurich, Switzerland. Until 2018, he was head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital Zurich. His scientific activities are focused on various aspects of traumatic stress research, including epidemiology, neurobiology, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for PTSD, resilience to stress, and, more recently, refugee mental health, and the emotional, psychosocial and physical consequences of child maltreatment. Past President of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS), the International Federation for Psychotherapy (IFP), and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). In 2013, he received the ESTSS Wolter de Loos Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychotraumatology in Europe, and in 2016 the ISTSS Lifetime Achievement Award. Honorary Member, International Federation for Psychotherapy (IFP).
Dr. Onno Sinke
Onno Sinke (Phd) is a historian and specialised in World War II and its aftermath. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Groningen about Radio Oranje (Radio Orange), the radiostation of the Dutch government in exile during WWII. He published several books about WWII, for example about the University of Technology in Delft during the German occupation. From 2017-2022 he was seconded part-time to the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies to conduct research about the so called bersiap period in the beginning of the Indonesian War of Independence. His research was part of the large scale research programme Independence, decolonization, violence and war in Indonesia, 1945-1950. He is currently working as a senior researcher/policy advisor for ARQ Centre of Expertise for War, Persecution and Violence
Ineke Sluiter, FBA.
Ineke Sluiter, FBA, is professor of Ancient Greek at Leiden University and former president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the recipient of a Spinoza prize and PI of the Gravitation grant research program on ‘Anchoring Innovation’ (www.anchoringinnovation.nl), which deals with diffusion and adoption of ‘the new’ in Greco-Roman antiquity. Her research interests span a wide range, but include the social psychology of the ancient world, and cognitive approaches to Greek tragedy. She is series co-editor of OUP’s monograph series Cognitive Classics.
Dr. Sjacko Sobczak
Dr. Sjacko Sobczak is a biomedical scientist and a geriatric psychiatrist at Mondriaan Mental Health Center, Professor of Dementia, severe neuropsychiatric symptoms and behavior at Research Center Innovations in Care Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (RUAS) and senior researcher at the department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands. Her expertise is on cognitive deterioration and comorbid psychiatric disorders with special expertise on PTSD and dementia. To improve prognosis for older adults with PTSD she initiated and leads the global collaboration on Traumatic Stress (GCTS), the ‘ON TRAumatiC stress and ageing: a global networK (ON TRACK).
Dr. Marian Tankink
Dr. Marian Tankink, is a medical anthropologist and former community psychiatric nurse. She works as a researcher and trainer, mainly in the Great Lake region in Africa and the Netherlands. She is specialised on the relationship between gender, violence, reconciliation, psychosocial well-being, and mental health in (post) conflict areas and among refugees. In addition, in her work she aims to link the field of mental health and psychosocial support with the field of peacebuilding. Her Ph.D. focused on how refugee women respond to personal experiences of sexual violence. Since 2017 she has broadened her focus to male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. She is a guest member of the board of the Department Transcultural Psychiatry of the Dutch Association of Psychiatry.
Dr. Els van der Ven
Dr. Els van der Ven is an associate professor in the department of clinical, neuro- and developmental psychology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is also a health care psychologist at the ARQ diagnostic center. Her research is focused on disparities in risk and treatment of mental health problems, in particular PTSD and psychosis, across settings and populations.
Dr. Francis Vergunst
Francis Vergunst is an Associate Professor in psychological and social difficulties at University of Oslo. His research examines the course and outcomes of early mental health problems, including how climate change is affecting the psychological development of children. Francis completed postdoctoral training at University of Montreal, where he was a CIHR Fellow, and holds a doctorate in psychiatric research from University of Oxford. His other interests include behavioral disorders, substance use, sustainable healthcare, global health, and applied ethics.
Linda Verhaak
Linda Verhaak is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, she specializes in the treatment of victims of sexual violence and early childhood trauma. She works at ARQ Centrum ’45 as a therapist in the team Sexual and SOGIE-related Violence and Exploitation. She is supervisor Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, supervisor Schema Therapy and EMDR Europe practitioner. As a trauma therapist she combines Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), EMDR and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. She is currently conducting research on the feasibility of Schema Therapy for migrant survivors of sexual violence. In addition, she works for ARQ International providing training in low resource countries such as Cameroon and DRC. Finally, she is involved in teaching, training and supervising psychologists in post-academic trajectories and providing training about prevention of secondary traumatization and self-care.
Dr. Eric Vermetten
Dr. Vermetten is a distinguished psychiatrist and professor at Leiden University Medical Center, in the Netherlands, focusing on advancing the field of psychotrauma. His research explores the medical-biological and psychiatric aspects of psychotrauma, validating groundbreaking interventions for PTSD such as 3MDR, service dogs, and medications like MDMA and psilocybin. With a wealth of experience as a retired Colonel and former Head of Research in Military Mental Health, Dr. Vermetten has played a pivotal role in advancing knowledge of stress and trauma-related disorders.
His research on moral injury sheds light on the psychological and emotional repercussions of experiences that challenge moral compasses, providing critical insights into mental well-being. Specializing in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care for uniformed professionals, Dr. Vermetten’s compassionate approach and understanding of posttraumatic stress and unexplained physical symptoms have garnered acclaim. He remains at the forefront of pioneering advancements in technology and medication-assisted therapies, striving to enhance care quality and outcomes. Dr. Vermetten’s credentials, research contributions, and dedication to transforming psychiatry make him a respected and sought-after expert, shaping the landscape of psychotrauma research and treatment for individuals affected by these conditions.
David Nieuwe Weme
David Nieuwe Weme is a researcher and policy advisor at ARQ International, specialising in developing MHPSS policy and interventions in (post-)conflict settings. He is currently editorial assistant at Intervention, the journal for MHPSS in conflict affected settings. For the past year and a half David has been living in Nairobi, Kenya conducting research on the effect of structural injustice on the psychological wellbeing of refugees in Nairobi, in collaboration with Amref International University.
David’s previous research focused on the effects of the global crisis response system on local networks and coping strategies in the context of the 2014-2016 West-Africa Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. He explores linkages between health and culture, trying to make social science insights relevant for field practitioners and policy makers.
Dr. Rachel Williamson
Dr. Rachel Williamson is a Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Montana. Her research program emphasizes expanded conceptualizations of trauma and traumatic stress responses. Although clinical conceptualizations of trauma, i.e., PTSD, are often explored, her research focuses on potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and responses that exist on the margins of diagnostic criteria, for example, collective traumas that are impactful, not necessarily due to a literal threat to one’s safety, but because of a threat to one’s existential security. The intersection of climate and mental health is a current area of focus, given the uniqueness of climate change as a non-discrete event that creates a cascade of PTEs both within and outside of circumscribed diagnoses. Dr. Williamson is the co-chair of the Climate Change theme of the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress. Dr. Williamson’s clinical work has been largely based in community mental health, including health clinics in remote Alaskan communities, experience that inspired the examination of the mental health impacts of climate change.
Dr. Mirjam van Zuiden
Dr. Mirjam van Zuiden is an assistant professor in Clinical Psychology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research aims to achieve effective prevention of Posttraumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related mental health problems through a precision approach with three interconnected research foci: 1) psychobiological processes underlying disorder susceptibility and development; 2) prognostic risk detection to determine early following traumatic events who is at highest risk for these disorders; 3) innovative preventive interventions targeting pathogenic psychobiological processes in those at risk.
As of 2020, she is the project leader of the multidisciplinary consortium ‘Towards Accurate Screening And Prevention: improving early risk detection and indicated prevention for PTSD (2-ASAP)’. This consortium aims to develop a sex-specific prognostic screening instrument derived with state-of-the art methodological approaches to predict which recently trauma-exposed individuals are at risk for long-term PTSD, and precisely target preventive interventions towards these individuals (www.2asap.nl). The consortium was funded by an 8-year grant from the Netherlands organization for Health Research and Development to Amsterdam University Medical Centers, in collaboration with Utrecht University, Slachtofferhulp Nederland, Arq National Psychotrauma Center and Erasmus Medical Center and various other academic and societal partners.
Previously, Mirjam received an early career researcher Veni grant from the Netherlands organization for Health Research and Development, and a Narsad Young Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
