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Keynote Speakers

Prof. Sanneke de Haan

Opening lecture on embodiment, enaction and bodily distress

Sanneke de Haan is Socrates Professor of Psychiatry and Philosophy at the Erasmus School of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Associate Professor of Bioethics and Ethics of (Mental) Health at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University. She works on topics at the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry, in particular on questions around the boundaries of normality (when and on what grounds do we consider some states (ab)normal or pathological?), authenticity and its relation to mental health problems, and integrative approaches to psychiatric disorders. Her work typically combines philosophical analysis and qualitative research.

After studying Humanistic Counselling (University for Humanist Studies) and philosophy (University of Amsterdam), De Haan obtained her PhD in Philosophy at Heidelberg University.

Based on her PhD thesis, she wrote the book Enactive Psychiatry which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Here De Haan develops an integrative approach to psychiatric disorders based on insights from enactivism; a theory that holds that we cannot separate the mental from the body and the environment. She shows how an enactive approach enables a better understanding of how the heterogeneous factors that contribute to the development and/or persistence of psychiatric disorders relate and affect each other. Apart from the well-known biological, psychological, and social dimensions, De Haan also includes the ‘existential dimension’ of how people relate to and make sense of their experiences.

From 2017-2023, De Haan received an NWO VENI grant for her project ‘Is it me or my disorder? Relational authenticity in psychiatry‘. That project investigated so-called ‘self-illness ambiguity’ in people with recurrent depressions: that is, how do people relate to their depressions and their medication in relation to their own identity. Are the depressions part of who I am, or rather an alien force that makes me less myself? As part of this project, De Haan developed a relational notion of authenticity: arguing that you enact yourself in interactions with others and that we should therefore take into account the qualities of these interactions, rather than assuming that being yourself is an intra-individual matter.

She currently works on comparing the (dis)advantages of different ways of making sense of one’s illness experiences. What would be a ‘beneficial’ way for someone to make sense of their experiences (e.g. as ‘normal’, ‘neurodiverse’, or ‘pathological’)? And how could we cash out what ‘beneficial’ entails precisely, and for whom?

Previously, De Haan conducted research on the experiences of adolescents prior to their first psychosis (Heidelberg University), and on the effects on Deep Brain Stimulation Treatment on the experiences of patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, including their experiences of changes in their identity (Amsterdam Medical Center). At The Berlin School of Mind and Brain (Humboldt University Berlin), she critically assessed the merits and pitfalls of neuroreductionist conceptions of psychiatric disorders.

Prof. Cédric Lemogne

Case example Long Covid: how difficult it still is to convey a biopsychosocial approach to illness

Cédric Lemogne is a professor of psychiatry at Université Paris Cité, where he chairs the Education Committee of the School of Medicine. After succeeding Professor Silla Consoli as head of the consultation-liaison psychiatry unit at the European Georges Pompidou Hospital (Paris), he now leads the Adult Psychiatry Department at Hôtel-Dieu (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris). His clinical expertise particularly involves managing patients with functional somatic disorders. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, he collaborated with Professors Brigitte Ranque (internal medicine) and Patricia Thoreux (sports medicine) to establish the CASPer multidisciplinary program at Hôtel-Dieu, dedicated to assessing and providing care to patients with severe long COVID.

He coordinates the French consultation-liaison psychiatry network, the “psychosomatic medicine” section of the French Association of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology, and is a board member of the French and French-speaking Society of Psycho-Oncology and vice-secretary of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine. Within the Research Center in Epidemiology and Statistics (Inserm U1153, Paris), his research focuses on the relationship between mental and physical health through the analysis of large datasets from general population epidemiological cohorts and clinical research projects. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Psychosomatic Research and the author or co-author of over 250 scientific articles.

Prof. Silje Endresen Reme

Optimizing Expectancy Effects: Communication Strategies for Clinicians Meeting Patients with Persistent Physical Symptoms

Dr. Reme is a Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Oslo and a Clinical Pain Psychologist at Oslo University Hospital. She completed both her undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Bergen and subsequently undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Prior to her tenure at the University of Oslo, Dr. Reme served as a Senior Researcher at Uni Research Health, where she co-led the Stress, Health, and Rehabilitation research group. Currently, Dr. Reme leads the Mind-Body Lab at the University of Oslo, which is dedicated to exploring the complex interplay between the brain and the rest of the body, with a particular focus on stress, pain, and fatigue. Her research primarily concentrates on chronic pain treatment, prevention of chronic post-surgical pain, chronic fatigue, stress-related conditions, and work disability.

In particular, she focuses on developing effective treatments for mind-body conditions like chronic primary pain and long Covid.

Dr. Reme has conducted several large-scale clinical trials that investigate various treatments for pain prevention and interventions aimed at facilitating return to work. She is also an integral member of the leadership team at the Oslo Chronic Fatigue Network.

Prof. Monica Greco

Transforming the biopsychosocial model: a sociological perspective

MONICA GRECO (BA, MA, PhD) is Professor of Sociology and currently Head of the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath. She was previously based in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and as a Humboldt Fellow at the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt-am-Main. She has held Visiting Faculty appointments at the Universities of Vienna and Aarhus. Monica has a multidisciplinary background in the humanities and social sciences. Since her PhD (European University, 1996), the focus of her research has been on psychosomatic medicine as an ‘epistemic project’ – a transnational scientific movement holding the (often frustrated) promise to overcome the limitations of narrowly biomedical conceptions of health and disease.

Working at the intersection of the history and philosophy of medicine, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and medical sociology, Monica has made significant contributions to the critical analysis of knowledge practices in this field, particularly in relation to questions of classification and explanation. Her work articulates the broader social and political implications of different ways of conceiving health and illness, as well as different ways of naming, classifying, and explaining. In recent years the empirical focus of Monica’s research has been on the evolving problematic of ‘symptom disorders’, partly observed through a collaboration with clinicians on a large pragmatic clinical trial of a new intervention for patients with these conditions.

Monica is a member of the transdisciplinary research network EURONET-SOMA. She is the author of Illness As a Work of Thought (Routledge, 1998); editor and contributor to a special issue of Theory and Psychology on ‘Liminal Hotspots’ (2017) and of a special issue of BMJ Medical Humanities on ‘Biopolitics and Psychosomatics’ (2019). She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals on topics that include

constructs of health and illness in psychosomatic medicine
healthism, health promotion, and the ‘happiness agenda’
conceptualisations of the ‘right to health’
vitalism in philosophy and in the history of the life sciences
interdisciplinarity in medicine / medical humanities

Prof. Omer Van den Bergh

Understanding persistent somatic symptoms: An experimental inquiry

Omer Van den Bergh was trained as a clinical and experimental psychologist at the University of Leuven, Belgium and at the NIMH-Center for the Study of Attention and Emotion, University of Florida, USA. As a professor in health psychology at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), he taught health psychology to students of medicine and psychological science. Omer Van den Bergh is an expert in the broad area of the relationship between health and behavior and is internationally known for his experimental and conceptual work on symptom perception and (respiratory) psychophysiology in response to stress and aversive somatic experiences. His research involves both normal subjects in laboratory experiments and translational studies with clinical patients.

He is currently emeritus professor (with ongoing assignment) since 2018, member of the Euronet-Soma group (https://www.euronet-soma.eu/) and involved in ETUDE, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovation Training Network (ITN), funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 Program. He is a distinguished member of the Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association and past president of the International Society for the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology (ISARP). He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Behavioral Medicine (ISBM) in 2018.

He is currently a Mercator Fellow at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and an Associate Fellow at the Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione (ISTC) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Rome, Italy. See more on http://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/nl/person/00005032

Prof. Dr. med. Frank Röhricht

Body psychotherapy: a biopsychosocial perspective

Frank Röhricht (MD, FRCPsych) is a Psychiatrist, Body psychotherapist and Medical Director for Research, Innovation and Medical Education at East London NHS Foundation Trust; he is Honorary Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Wolfson Institute for Population Health, Queen Mary University London and Honorary Professor of Psychiatry, St. George’s Medical School, Nicosia University / Cyprus. His research focuses on body image phenomenology / embodiment and evaluation of new psychotherapy interventions (especially body psychotherapy) for severe mental illnesses; other research: Service user led research and co-production; creativity and art therapies; Transcultural psychopathology; Community psychiatry care models; he developed a novel integrative care pathway for patients with functional somatic symptom disorders.

He developed the first academic curriculum for body psychotherapy at master’s level (MA Program “Clinical Psychology with Body Psychotherapy Certificate” in Istanbul, Maltepe University) and is Editor of “Körper-Tanz-Bewegungg”, editorial board member of “Arts in Psychotherapy” and “Body, Dance Movement in Psychotherapy”.

Prof. Charlotte Ulrikka Rask

Biopsychosocial approaches in child and youth psychiatry

Clinical Professor Dr. Charlotte Ulrikka Rask has over 20 years of experience researching functional disorders and health anxiety in children and adolescents, with a strong focus on developmental trajectories, risk factors, and treatment. Her work has examined these issues in children as young as 5–7 years old, including a recent systematic review of child health anxiety. Dr. Charlotte Ulrikka Rask has conducted randomized controlled trials on new psychological interventions, such as the group-based therapy program AHEAD for adolescents with severe functional disorders, which is now implemented in clinical practice. Her research also includes internet-based treatments for youth with functional abdominal pain or persistent physical symptoms, as well as her involvement in developing the first program addressing health anxiety by proxy in parents

Dr. Charlotte Ulrikka Rask is a certified specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and a recognized supervisor in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents. Her commitment to education is evident in her extensive teaching contributions at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, particularly in functional disorders and health anxiety. She teaches medical students, provides specialized courses for doctors and psychologists, and serves as an examiner for psychiatry at Aarhus University in Denmark. Her role as an educator also includes supervising postdocs, PhD candidates, and medical students working on a range of research projects.

Currently, Dr. Charlotte Ulrikka Rask serves as Chief Physician and Clinical Professor at Aarhus University Hospital Psychiatry, where she is responsible for overseeing regional and highly specialized clinical services for young patients with functional disorders. Drawing on her clinical and research expertise, she has played a pivotal role in the Danish Health Authority’s working group, contributing to the development of the national guidelines for the assessment and treatment of functional disorders in children and adolescents in Denmark. Her research achievements have also led to her authorship of the chapter on functional disorders in latest edition of Rutter’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the leading international textbook in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. In recognition of her contributions to psychosomatics, she received the EAPM Fellowship in 2022.

Prof. Sir Simon Wessely

Why the medical system is not biopsychosocial and what to do about it

Sir Simon Wessely FRS is the Regius Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN), part of King’s College London (KCL), the first and only such chair in the United Kingdom. He is also a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley and also King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts. After studying medicine and History of Art at Cambridge, he finished his medical training at Oxford 1. He obtained the MRCP in Newcastle, before moving to London to train in psychiatry at the Maudsley. He is an active clinical academic psychiatrist, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999) and became a Fellow of the Royal Society (2021).

He is a Past President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2013-17) and the Royal Society of Medicine (2017-2020). He chaired the government’s Independent Review of the Mental Health Act (2017-19), soon to be law. He was Interim Dean of the IOPPN (2022-23) and is now a Non Executive Director of NHS-England. After a Master’s and Doctorate in epidemiology, his research career began in unexplained symptoms and syndromes and then military health. In 2003 he founded the King’s Centre for Military Health Research. He remains the Honorary Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army, and works with several charities for Veterans. He was knighted in 2013 for services to military health and psychological medicine.

Sir Simon was the first Director of the PHE NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Response (2014-2021), which was very active during the COVID crisis, and continues to have a broad interest in how people and populations react to adversity and occupational health and well being. He has over 1000 publications, with an H index of 111 (Scopus), 152 (Google), and is a “Highly Cited Researcher”, with >120,000 citations. However, if you are a follower of the UK radio programme “Desert island Discs” you will know his favourite occupation is arguing in Viennese cafes but also that he is a season ticket holder at Chelsea Football Club and thus is always happy to go back to Munich of which he has very fond memories.