Keynote speakers

Prof. dr. Brian Hughes:

Rethinking Stress and Anxiety Research: Good and Bad Science in Psychology

Prof. dr. Nazanin Derakhshan:

Emotional Vulnerability and the Road to Resilience

Prof. dr. Rita Rosner:

Prolonged Grief Disorder

Prof. dr. Ilan H. Meyer:

Minority stress and the health of LGBT populations

Prof. dr. Darja Maslić Seršić:

Contemporary challenges of coping with unemployment

Presidential Address: Prof. dr. Brian Hughes: Rethinking Stress and Anxiety Research: Good and Bad Science in Psychology

School of Psychology, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

Presidential Address abstract: Attempts to explain the joys and stresses of the human condition have attracted popular fascination for centuries. This led to the emergence of scientific psychology, a modern empirical enterprise that uses scientific methods to resolve uncertainties in our understanding of people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Psychology often attracts significant attention from people who hold ambivalent, or even deeply negative, views about science. This STAR Presidential Address considers the way science shapes the study of stress and anxiety. It considers the scientific nature of psychology, as well as ways in which scientific shortcomings creep into mainstream research, and asks: to what extent does imperfect science threaten the impact and credibility of our work?

Biography: Brian Hughes is Professor of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Occupational and Life Stress (CROLS). His research examines the effects of stress on physical systems of the body, with an emphasis on how personality differences impact on cardiovascular stress responses. He holds PhD and EdM degrees from the National University of Ireland and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and he has held visiting faculty positions at King’s College London, Leiden University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Birmingham. He is a former president of the Psychological Society of Ireland. He also writes widely on the psychology of empiricism and of empirically disputable claims, especially as they pertain to science, health, and medicine. His latest book is Rethinking Psychology: Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience, which was published this year by Palgrave.

Distinguished Spielberger Address: Prof. dr. Nazanin Derakhshan: Emotional Vulnerability and the Road to Resilience

Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck University of London, UK

Distinguished Spielberger Address abstract: Anxiety and depressive vulnerability will be the biggest cause of disability by 2020. The WHO estimates that 50 billion years of work will be lost due to anxiety and depression by the year 2030. Unfortunately, risk factors for such vulnerablities have not been understood and the effectiveness of current psychotherapeutic techniques have been highly limited. In a theoretical breakthrough we have identified that pre-frontal mechanisms of attentional control can play a causal role in predicting the onset, maintenance and reuccurence of emotional vulnerability. In a series of cutting-edge interventions we have shown that attentional control mechanisms can be targeted and boosted to promote resilience and psychological flexibility reducing emotional vulnerability to anxiety and depressive symptomatology. This talk will discuss the pathways by which resilience in mental well-being can be attained and how it is possible to protect against emotional vulnerability in cognitive and emotional health. Implications for interventions that exercise attentional control are highlighted for their applications in clinical, sporting and educational settings.

Biography: Nazanin Derakshan is a Professor of Experimental Psychopathology at Birkbeck University of London, UK. She is Director of the Risk and Resilience in Mental Well-Being laboratory, and the Director of the Centre for Building Resilience in Breast Cancer. She has published influential and highly cited theoretical and empirical papers, She has won various awards throughout her career. She is an advocate for public engagement of science at the Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust and the British Academy. She has held major editorial posts in top international journals in her field. Her research has discovered the cognitive roots of emotional vulnerability that have helped design and test interventions that can reduce vulnerability towards resilience and well-being.

Prof. dr. Rita Rosner: Prolonged Grief Disorder

Clinical and Biological Psychology at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany

Keynote abstract: Abnormal forms of grief, currently referred to as complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder (PGD), have been discussed extensively in recent years. While DSM 5 neglects abnormal grief, ICD-11 is likely to include prolonged grief disorder. Core symptoms are intense yearning and preoccupation with the loss, reactive distress symptoms, such as avoidance of memories of the deceased person and emotional numbing, as well as social/identity disruption, such as feeling detached or having difficulties trusting others. About 5% of mourners develop PGD. Normal grief, depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and PGD can be distinguished reliably. Yet, disorders are often comorbid and specifically differentiating between normal but painful grief and PGD may be difficult. Theories of grief will be reviewed as well as successful interventions for PGD. Specific treatments will be introduced.

Biography: Prof. Dr. Rita Rosner holds currently the chair for Clinical and Biological Psychology at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany. She is licenced as a psychotherapist for adults as well as for children and adolescents. She received her training at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Prof. Rosner is a former president of the German speaking Society of Psychotraumatology (DeGPT) and serves currently on the board of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS). She is also an associate editor for the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT). Current research projects focus on the treatment of adolescents with PTSD after sexual and physical abuse, as well as on the treatment of children after various traumatic events. A number of studies on prolonged grief disorder are just finalized. Earlier studies dealt with the effects of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Prof. dr. Ilan H. Meyer: Minority stress and the health of LGBT populations

Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at UCLA’s School of Law

Keynote abstract: Minority stress describes social stressors that impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations. The model has guided population research on LGBT health disparities by identifying the mechanisms by which social stressors impact health and describing the harm to LGBT people from prejudice and stigma. In this lecture, Dr. Meyer will present the foundations of minority stress and resilience as a causal model for health and health disparities of sexual and gender identity minorities. He will review the current state of research on minority stress in LGBT populations in the the international context. Dr. Meyer will discuss policy implications of this research in international litigation including Bayev v. Russia, a case challenging the Russian law banning "homosexual propaganda" in the European Court of Human Rights and Sexual Minorities Uganda vs. Scott Lively, a case accusing a U.S.-based anti-gay extremist, for his role in the persecution of LGBTI people in Uganda.

Biography: Ilan H. Meyer, Ph.D. is the Williams Distinguished Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at UCLA’s School of Law. Prior to coming to UCLA in 2011, Dr. Meyer was Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences and Deputy Chair for MPH Programs at the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Meyer studies public health issues related to minority health. His areas of research include stress and illness in minority populations, in particular, the relationship of minority status, minority identity, prejudice and discrimination and mental health outcomes in sexual minorities and the intersection of minority stressors related to sexual orientation, race/ethnicity and gender. In several highly cited papers, Dr. Meyer has developed a model of minority stress that describes the relationship of social stressors and mental disorders and helps to explain LGBT health disparities. The model has guided his and other investigators’ population research on LGBT health disparities by identifying the mechanisms by which social stressors impact health and describing the harm to LGBT people from prejudice and stigma. The model was cited by the Institute of Medicine as one of four cross-cutting perspectives (the only one stemming from LGBT scholarship) recommended for the study of LGBT health. For this work, Dr. Meyer received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns of the American Psychological Association (APA) and Distinguished Scientific Contribution award from the APA’s Division 44.

Prof. dr. Darja Maslić Seršić: Contemporary challenges of coping with unemployment

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb, Croatia

Keynote abstract: The economic recession followed by increased unemployment rates recently registered in most European countries has decreased the quality of work life for many people. In the first instance, many have experienced work intensification, a higher level of job insecurity, and finally, job loss and unemployment. These pervasive stressors represent the nonpecuniary individual costs of working in a context of macroeconomic stagnation. In this respect, special demands are placed on workers in countries with high and stagnant unemployment rates, as is the case in Croatia. Accordingly, this lecture discusses and compares the findings of recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies conducted in several countries with high unemployment rates and low work mobility. The results are organized along three topics that present the most pronounced challenges for workers and for psychologists working with the unemployed: (1) consequences of unemployment on individual health; (2) problem and emotion focused strategies of coping with job loss; and (3) human and social capital variables that serve as individual resources in the job search process. Special emphasis is placed on the individual costs of adaptive work behavior in the process of coercive work mobility between employment, unemployment and nonstandard work, phenomena specific for the social context presented above. The main conclusions are discussed in line with the meaning of work and the conservation of resources theory. The lecture concludes with guidelines for designing psychological interventions for three distinct groups of unemployed persons: currently displaced workers, long-term unemployed persons and young people entering job markets.

Biography: Darja Maslić Seršić is a Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. She teaches courses in Research Methods, Organizational and Occupational Health Psychology. Her research interests lie in the area of W/O Psychology, with an emphasis on work stress, coping with job loss, dispositional employability and the health consequences of unemployment. Professor Maslić Seršić is an internationally recognized author. Her work has contributed to current understanding of the individual resources that predict adaptive career behavior in a changing labor context. She has published several highly cited papers, has written one book and edited two further books, and has led several national and international research projects. She spent the 2011/2012 academic year as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Colorado State University. Professor Maslić Seršić is professionally active in Croatian society, participating in government and civil sector projects aiming to enhance the quality of work and work-related well-being for people of various demographic characteristics and employment backgrounds.