Plenary Speakers
Lucy Johnstone, PsyD
Dr Lucy Johnstone is a consultant clinical psychologist, author of 'Users and abusers of psychiatry' (3rd edition Routledge 2021) and ‘A straight-talking guide to psychiatric diagnosis’ (PCCS Books, 2nd edition 2022); co-editor of 'Formulation in psychology and psychotherapy: making sense of people's problems' (Routledge, 2nd edition 2013); and co-author of ‘A straight talking introduction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework’, 2020, PCCS Books) along with a number of other chapters and articles taking a critical perspective on mental health theory and practice. She is the former Programme Director of the Bristol Clinical Psychology Doctorate in the UK and has worked in Adult Mental Health settings for many years. She is Visiting Professor at London South Bank University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
She was lead author, along with Professor Mary Boyle, for the ‘Power Threat Meaning Framework’ (2018), a British Psychological Society publication co-produced with service users, which outlines a conceptual alternative to psychiatric diagnosis. She currently works as an independent trainer, and lives in Bristol, UK.
The Power Threat Meaning Framework: A conceptual alternative to the diagnostic model of distress
The Power Threat Meaning Framework was published in 2018 by the British Psychological Society. Co-produced by a core team of psychologists and service users, with Dr Lucy Johnstone and Professor Mary Boyle as lead authors, it offers an alternative to more traditional models of mental health based on psychiatric diagnosis. It demonstrates the links between social factors such as poverty, discrimination and inequality, along with traumas such as abuse and violence, and the resulting emotional distress. In this way it helps to show that fear, despair, mood swings, and unusual experiences or beliefs are the result of ‘what happened to you’ not ‘what is wrong with you.’ The PTMF can be used to help people create more hopeful narratives about their difficulties, instead of seeing themselves as blameworthy, weak, deficient or ‘mentally ill’. It also shows why those of us who do not have an obvious history of trauma or adversity can still struggle to find a sense of self-worth, meaning and identity. The PTMF has attracted national and international attention.
Maria Karekla, Ph.D.
Dr. Maria Karekla is a licensed clinical psychologist, and associate professor at the University of Cyprus where she heads the ACThealthy Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Medicine laboratory. She is a peer-reviewed acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) therapy trainer, and presently serves as the President of ACBS, where she has been a fellow since 2019. She is also a fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM). She was nominated in 2017 for the National Literary Awards in the children/adolescents category, and also for her illustrations for the book. She has received numerous national and international awards and grants for her research work. In 2018, she was nominated as Cyprus Woman of the Year in the academic/researcher category.
Are we there yet? Digitally moving towards the future of contextual behavior science.
Recently, the Task Force on the strategies and tactics of contextual behavioral science research released a white paper outlining that CBS research should be multilevel, process-based, multidimensional, prosocial, and pragmatic. This white paper outlines recommendations to maximize the impact of CBS as afield for a science “more adequate to the challenge of the human condition”(Hayes et al. 2021). Digital technologies offer opportunities for research andpractice to encapsulate these recommendations and springboard CBS research and practice to the next level. This presentation will provide an overview of the possibilities offered by the digital medium, and illustrate these with recent research from the ACThealthy laboratory.
.jpg)
Susan Michie, FMedSci, FAcSS, FBA
Susan Michie, FMedSci, FAcSS, FBA is Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, UK. She is the Chair of WHO’s Behavioural Insights and Sciences Technical Advisory Group, participated in the Lancet’s Covid-19 Commission and served as an expert advisor on the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Group in Emergencies and its Behavioural Science group. Susan is part of the UK’s Policy Research Unit in Behavioural Sciences, advising the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care. Professor Michie has served as Chair of the UK Food Standard Agency’s Social Sciences Advisory Committee and chaired the Academy of Social Science’s ‘Health of People’ project. Susan’s research focuses on behaviour change in relation to health and the environment: how to understand it theoretically and apply theory to intervention development and evaluation, and to evidence synthesis and translation.
Using models and ontologies to enable behaviour change
Human behaviour lies at the heart of existential threats, such as climate change and pandemics. Changing behaviour is key to addressing them, whether of citizens, industry leaders, policymakers and others. Understanding behaviours in their can be helped by models of behaviour that allow a holistic assessment of behaviour and point to the kinds of interventions likely to be effective.One of the barriers to making more progress in developing effective interventions is the silos in which knowledge sits, which limits the accumulation of knowledge. People in different disciplines, sectors and countries use different language, often using the same terms for different things and different terms for the same things. Ontologies are ways of representing knowledge using shared vocabularies – present the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology.
Pádraig Ó Tuama
Pádraig Ó Tuama is the host of On Being’s Poetry Unbound and also the author of Poetry Unbound; 50 Poems to Open Your Life. Profiled by The New Yorker, published in Poetry Ireland, the Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review and many others, he brings interests in conflict, language, religion and power to his work. From 2014-2019 he was the leader of the Corrymeela Community, Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation community. Ó Tuama has numerous professional accreditations in conflict, focusing particularly on dynamics of group conflicts.
Poetry: Finding a Home in the World
Contextual behavioral science takes the view that we relate to ourselves, each other, and our world, through language. The stories we tell can constrain or liberate us, can bring us closer, or push us apart. Poetry has occurred in every human culture and plays an essential role in our understanding of what it means to be human. What is it that this form of language — a form that stretches towards music — can show us? What might it offer us in terms of our connection to each other, to ourselves as clinicians, to our scientific inquiry and understanding about human behavior? Pádraig Ó Tuama will explore some poetry and suggest ways in which it describes, contains, disquiets, comforts, denounces and considers the human condition. He will explore the why, or function, of poetry, and its intuition and intelligence about human experience. These questions open up self-inquiry about how we make meaning in our lives, or use and create language to shape relationships to ourselves, each other, and our home in the world.
Invited Speakers
Vera Araújo-Soares, Lic. Psych; MSc, PhD, FEHPS
Vera is currently leading the Division on Prevention of the Center for Preventive Medicine and Digital Health (CPD) at the Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Germany. Vera led the Behaviour Change programme in Fuse, the UK Clinical Research Collaboration Centre of Excellence for Translational Research in Public Health. She has also served as the 14th elected President of the European Health Psychology Society. Her research is theoretically grounded, applied, interdisciplinary and multi-methodological and funded by major funders such as the UK National Institute for Health Research and the Medical Research Council.
Developing Behaviour Change Interventions for Self-Management in Chronic Illness
Health care systems face pressures related to an increasing number of people living with chronic conditions: obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease amongst others. For effective self-management behaviour change is needed as it can improve health outcomes and quality of life. Intervention development science aims to optimize the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of interventions. Developing and implementing an intervention should also require rigorous evaluation of outcomes and processes of behaviour change as doing this will contribute to intervention refinement and increase our understanding on human behaviour in context. The development of new services and technologies offers opportunities to enhance the scope of delivery of interventions to support behaviour change and self-management at scale. Here I will review key approaches to intervention development, provide a critical overview, and integrate these approaches into a pragmatic framework to rigorously guide decision-making in behaviour change intervention development. Moreover, I will highlight emerging issues pertaining to co-beneficial behaviours and will present a new vision on the role of health care professionals in this era of climate change.
Tamar Black, Ph.D.
Dr. Black is an educational and developmental psychologist in Melbourne, Australia. She has 20 years’ experience working as a school psychologist, and 21 years’ experience in private practice, working with children, adolescents and parents. She is an approved supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia and the APS College of Educational and Developmental Psychology. Tamar has trained extensively in ACT and has expertise in supervising psychologists in using ACT for treating children and adolescents. Tamar is an experienced and very enthusiastic ACT trainer and provides training to local and international organisations and professionals working with children around the world.
Using the ACT Kidflex with Children and Adolescents: Making ACT Practical, Engaging and Easy to Understand
ACT can be used effectively with children and adolescents for a wide range of issues. This highly practical workshop will introduce you to the new ACT Kidflex: a developmentally appropriate adaptation of the ACT Hexaflex, along with simple and engaging techniques. Strategies will also be taught for how to enlist parents/caregivers as ‘ACT coaches’ and give them simple techniques to reinforce what the child/adolescent has learned in therapy sessions.
Raimo Lappalainen, Ph.D.
Dr. Lappalainen is a professor in clinical psychology and psychotherapy at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. A licensed psychologist and psychotherapist. He has acted as the vice head and the head of the Department of Psychology between years 2008-2013. He has over 25 years experience of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CBT) with expertise especially in the third wave CBT, acceptance and value –based interventions. Author of more than 100 scientific articles and books. Special expertise in applying and constructing web- and mobile-based psychological interventions. His main research interests are development of brief psychological interventions, including web- and mobile -based interventions for wellness management.
From Magis mobile games to Student Compass - Mobile technology to increase psychological flexibility in children, adolescents and young adults
Many children, adolescents as well as young adults report increased psychological symptoms. There is a need for psychological support that exceeds the resources available at schools to support young people. Traditional problem oriented one-on-one treatment delivery approach require evidence-based alternatives that can be widely and easily disseminated. Technology-based treatment models, especially those focusing on training of psychological flexibility skills can allow a more flexible intervention delivery. Classroom-level and school-based interventions provide an opportunity for training of psychological flexibility skills and prevention of psychological problems among children, adolescents, and young adults.
We have developed two mobile-games, Magis – The Story of Runegrove for children aged 7-9 years and Magis – The Magical Adventure for children with 10 to 12 years that use a dialogue and problem-solving approach to enhance psychological flexibility skills. In addition, a web-based ACT intervention Youth Compass including a virtual coach is available for adolescents aged 13 to 17 years and a web-based intervention the Student Compass to support the psychological wellbeing of college students. A set of workbooks is provided for teachers to support the training of psychological skills in classroom. In addition, group interventions with handbooks are available at all age levels for more intensive training. I will present the two ACT-based mobile-games and the two web interventions as well as our experiences of acceptability and effectiveness of these solutions. Also, the role of different psychological flexibility skills in technology-based treatment models will be discussed.
Alexandros Lordos, Ph.D.
Dr. Lordos is currently an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Cyprus. He also has served as Head of Learning and Innovation at the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development, based in Brussels. He is also a member of the boards of directors of several private companies, visiting scientist at the School of Public Health of Harvard University and a senior associate of the International Peacebuilding Advisory Team. He is the writer of award-winning papers on peace and psychology.
Developing national infrastructures for multisystemic recovery and resilience: A process-based approach
Extreme societal adversity can lead to multisystemic dysfunction at the individual, familial, communal, and institutional levels. This talk focuses on a process-based approach for multisystemic recovery and resilience in extreme contexts based on public health research in Ukraine, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. Our approach utilizes participatory network analysis with community stakeholders to identify potential intervention targets and treatment kernels at different levels. On this basis, we selected or developed distinct group-based community interventions that address specific processes of change. Resilience-oriented therapy strengthens socio-emotional skills, multi-family healing spaces mitigate inter-generational trauma, sociotherapy reduces mistrust, while our manual for community-based enterprises supports vulnerable community members to overcome poverty. We will discuss how to bring interventions to regional or national scale through community-based coalitions that include local authorities, primary health care, the education sector, and NGOs. This approach has the potential to provide effective, evidence-based solutions that can improve the mental health and well-being of populations affected by extreme adversity and contribute to their long-term recovery and resilience, integrating interventions from mental health, peacebuilding, and livelihoods development.