ONLINE 26th INTERNATIONAL NETWORK MEETING FOR THE TREATMENT OF PSYCHOSIS 2022, SPAIN

Is an ‘Open Dialogue compagnon' and staff officer at Steunpunt Geestelijke Gezondheid/vzw Psyche, co-creating Open Dialogue practice in Flanders, Belgium. After promoting Open Dialogue development in the region of North-West-Flanders since 2016, Dag is now also facilitating Open Dialogue meetings, supporting teams and co-coordinating projects on the development of Open Dialogue practice in the rest of Flanders. In cooperation with mental health organisations, people with lived experience, people with family experience, social welfare partners and training of health professionals/peer workers, Dag and his colleagues are also actively connecting Open Dialogue practice to strengthening and spreading other community-based, right-based and recovery-based practices. 

Adolfo J. Cangas is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Almeria and has more than a hundred publications in specialized journals. He has received several awards and distinctions: The Indalo de Oro Award (Hospital Universitario de Torrecárdenas); Special Recognition for the Treatment Programme for People with Disabilities (El Acebuche Penitentiary Centre), and the; FEAFES-Andalucía Award for the Recognition of the contribution in the field of Mental Health (FAAFES Andalucía Salud Mental). He has been a promoter for five years in Almeria of the programme called Inclúyete (www.incluyete.blog).

Is an accredited postdoctoral researcher and PhD working at the University of Almería (UAL). She has participated as a speaker in more than 50 national and international congresses. She has several high impact publications in the area of physical activity, inclusion and mental health. She has carried out research stays in the United Kingdom where she has given seminars in this field.

Andrea Zwicknagl is a peer support specialist in Switzerland and part of the Swiss Hearing Voices Network. She started working at the psychiatric services in Interlaken, Switzerland. She attended the first Open Dialogue training in Switzerland in 2015-16 and she has helped to spread the word on this approach in the German-speaking area. Andrea collaborates with the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal (IIPDW) and works within the Expert Committee for Psychiatric Drugs of the German society for Social Psychiatry. In January 2017, she co-founded the first Trialogue specific to the topic of reducing and terminating neuroleptics, based in Bern.

Michelle Funk is the head of the Policy, Law, and Human Rights Unit of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use at the World Health Organization. She has created and leads the Quality Rights Initiative (WHO) that aims to assess and improve human rights standards in existing services and advance the full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Olga Runciman is the first and only psychologist in private practice in Denmark to specialize in psychosis. She is an international trainer, speaker, writer, campaigner, and artist. She is a co-founder of the Danish Hearing Voices network. She is a board member of various organizations, including Intervoice, Mad in America, The Danish Psychosocial Rehabilitation Organization, and others. As a postpsychiatric psychologist, Olga has helped many people taper off or withdraw from their psychiatric drugs and has built up extensive everyday knowledge on how to best help people who wish to do this.

Silvia Parrabera is a clinical psychologist and has coordinated the Early Attention Unit (EAU) at the Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias (Madrid) for the past 5 years. The EAU accompanies people in crisis, facing first-episode psychosis, using the framework of Open Dialogue. Silvia’s professional career has always been linked to people diagnosed with psychosis, throughout the coordination of different resources of the Madrid social and mental health care network. She participates as a Trainer of Open Dialogue in different university trainings, and in the training and supervision of mental health teams. She is currently collaborating with the JAEC Foundation (Switzerland) in different projects for the consolidation of Open Dialogue as an alternative form of mental health care.

Daniela Echenique, a clinical psychologist, completed her residency in clinical psychology at the Hospital General Universitário de Elche, specializing in treating severe mental disorders and complex trauma. She is specialized in family therapy (multifamily groups) and community care. Daniela is now working on her doctoral thesis on early traumatic experiences and mentalization processes in people diagnosed with first psychotic episodes and chronic schizophrenia. She has recently concentrated on interventions in the Integrative and EMDR models. She is currently working in the Early Intervention Unit of the Hospital Príncipe de Asturias in Alcalá de Henares, which uses the Open Dialogue approach to accompany people with a first psychotic experience.

Sergio Sánchez is a psychologist in the Community Social Support Team "Distrito Centro" at the Fundación San Martín de Porres. He is also a family psychotherapist and an expert in Group and Multifamily Interventions. He currently works with families within the frame of Open Dialogue at the JAEC Foundation.

Cristian Marín is a specialist in clinical psychology who did his external residency in Open Dialogue in the Early Attention Unit at the Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias (Madrid). He is trained in Gestalt therapy and completed a master's degree in neuropsychology, focusing mainly on present-oriented work. Cristian's professional career is oriented toward dealing with people and their contexts. At the same time, he is centered on studying conversation, narratives, and dialogues as the primary form of therapeutic practice.

Miguel Molina is an Occupational Therapist and Therapeutic Companion. He has worked in different psychosocial rehabilitation resources for people suffering from severe mental health problems. He is part of the team of the Early Attention Unit for psychosis at the Hospital Príncipe de Asturias in Alcalá de Henares, where he works with the Open Dialogue approach.

Alexander Smith is the director of a rural community mental health programme in Vermont, USA, where he has worked for the past 30 years. More recently he has helped support the implementation of Open Dialogue-informed practices.

Ana Ortega Peña is graduated in Law (UCM) and is a mental health activist. She has a masters in European Union Law (UCIIIM) and a masters in New Technologies in Law from the University of San Pablo (Madrid). Ana has represented more than 10 cases of involuntary admissions to psychiatric units with extreme violence and coercion and has been a member of the association La Porvenir for two and a half years. Ana adds the legal voice to the Open Dialogue meetings and researches legal forms of redress that integrate Open Dialogue and law. 

Pablo Fernandez Cordón is part of the crisis response team of the association La Porvenir. He has worked as a psychologist in different resources of the socio-sanitary network in Madrid. He is especially interested in Open Dialogue as a tool to renounce forced treatment.

Pedro Enrique Luque González is a psychologist who is interested in a theoretical and practical paradigm shift in mental health. He has worked in various resources of the socio-health network of Madrid. When he has had mental health problems, he has fled from psychologists and psychiatrists.

Nick Putman is a psychotherapist and Open Dialogue practitioner, supervisor and trainer, based in London, UK. After working as a psychologist in the NHS, he trained as a psychotherapist with the Philadelphia Association (PA) in London, and in 2013 founded Open Dialogue UK which seeks to promote change in the approach taken in public mental health services, and to develop and promote trainings for staff working in public services, as well as in private practice for families and networks. 

Salut Torné has a degree in Philosophy and Educational Sciences, a master's degree in Speech Therapy and Transdisciplinary Art Therapy, and a postgraduate degree in Expressive Arts Therapy (Poiesis). Salut is a pedagogical advisor and speech therapist at the Guttman Institute in Badalona, an educational and professional counselor, and an advisor at La Casa dels Nens (children's palliative care). Salut has vast experience in the accompaniment of family members with a psychiatric diagnosis and has published several studies on anorexia, among them, Anorexia y psiquiatría que muera el monstruo no tú (2020) and Anorexia, enfermedad mental y gestión de la salud. Cuando enferma nuestro ser querido. (2021). In 2021 she created the Salutogénisis Foundation.

Louisa Putnam is a licensed family therapist, a grandmother, and the mother of Lucas Finnegan who took his life 10 years ago while on 8 psychiatric meds, having been labeled with an "incurable brain disease" which doctors named "schizoaffective disorder." Louisa has been fortunate to train in Open Dialogue and Peer Supported Open Dialogue. She works with families in mental health crises, locally in New Mexico, USA, and offers classes in mindfulness and support groups to parents and adult children who are or have been involved in the psychiatric system. Louisa is the author of an article in the special edition of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology: A License to be Crazy.

Kermit Cole is a founding Board Member of Mad in America.

A former filmmaker, Kermit is a family therapist, trained in dialogical therapies, and has extensive experience working with people in psychotic states. He was Mad in America's editor for several years, and currently is director of MIA’s online webinars and educational efforts.

Jordi Marfá is a doctor in Medicine, specializing in Psychiatry in 1981. He works as a psychoanalyst at the Institut de Psicoanàlisi de Barcelona, and as an adjunct psychiatrist at the Clínica Mental de Sta. Coloma de Gramanet (1982 - 1995), where he has been the medical doctor and the director of the Rehabilitation Unit and the Acute Hospitalization Unit. From 1995 to 2021 he has been the director of CSMA 2 in Badalona. Jordi is a founding member and patron of the Fundació Congrés Català de Salut Mental, and secretary of the Ethics Committee of the FCCSM, since 2002. He has participated in the edition of the Guia de bones practiques per l'atenció psicosocial en joves i adolescents (2014) and of the Guia dela Gestión Colaborativa de la Medicación (2017-2021). Jordi has participated as a teacher in the 7th edition of the biannual Curs sobre la conducció de grups i families and has also taught at the Master of Community Mental Health at the University of Barcelona (UB) since 2018. He is currently a student in the postgraduate course Fundamentals of Open Dialogue, at Blanquerna University.

Itay Kander, has a BA in Social Work, a MA in Public Policy and is the founder, project manager, and workshop facilitator at Open Dialogue Israel (ODI). A critical blogger and essayist, Itay has published in the Hebrew press many articles about mental health related issues and worked for 6 years as a case manager in the rehabilitative and recovery services. He wrote an influential report titled Alternatives to Hospitalization in 2015 and operated the Index of Alternatives to Psychiatric Hospitalization, a website listing existing alternatives in Israel. Chairperson of ISPS Israel from 2016 to 2019, Itay graduated from a one-year Open Dialogue course in 2020 and has been practicing OD with local networks ever since.

Patricia Rey is a polydiagnosed psychiatrist and mental health activist. Committed to various projects within the activist field since 2009, she is dedicated to validating and disseminating a new culture of coping with crises, respecting human rights, people, and their processes, and based on the collective management of mental suffering. She currently combines teaching and the coordination of training, dissemination, and cultural projects with the supervision of professionals, teams, institutions, accompaniment, and consultancy tasks. She has received training as a Mutual Support Agent and in Therapeutic Accompaniment.

Silvia Parrabera is a clinical psychologist and has coordinated the Early Attention Unit (EAU) at the Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias (Madrid) for the past 5 years. The EAU accompanies people in crisis, facing first-episode psychosis, using the framework of Open Dialogue. Silvia’s professional career has always been linked to people diagnosed with psychosis, throughout the coordination of different resources of the Madrid social and mental health care network. She participates as a Trainer of Open Dialogue in different university trainings, and in the training and supervision of mental health teams. She is currently collaborating with the JAEC Foundation (Switzerland) in different projects for the consolidation of Open Dialogue as an alternative form of mental health care.

Pina Ridente is a registered psychiatrist, psychotherapist and a certified Open Dialogue practitioner. She holds a degree in the Trainer's Training: Dialogical approaches in couple and family therapy (2016-2018, Dialogic Partners, University of Jyväskylä, Finland). Pina has considerable experience working with people experiencing psychosis and their families using dialogic approaches. She has worked for over 40 years in the community services of the Mental Health Department of Trieste (Italy), promoting person-centered and rights-based approaches to mental health. Pina is currently teaching OD in Italy, India, and Brazil.     

Mikel Valverde is a social worker and a clinical psychologist who has worked in the mental health network of Navarra, from 1986 to 2018, in numerous areas, such as acute, childhood, families, community work, self-help groups, users and addiction. Mikel is the author of several works on evaluating mental health and bioethics. Some of his publications are: Las voces de la asistencia en salud mental en el siglo XXI bajo el signo biomédico (2022, with J A Inchauspe); El uso de antipsicóticos en la psicosis. Alcance, limitaciones y alternativas (2017, with Inchauspe and Marmol), and; Psicofarmacoterapia, (2018).

Riitta is an Open Dialogue trainer, psychiatrist, and family therapist in Finland. Riitta is certified to act as a responsible supervisor and trainer for dialogical approaches in couple and family therapy and has 20 years of experience in developing dialogic practice in the psychiatric organizations of the public sector. She takes a special interest in psychotic experiences and uses dialogic and embodied approaches in everyday practices.

Pina Ridente is a registered psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and certified Open Dialogue practitioner. She holds a degree in the Trainer's Training: Dialogical approaches in Couple and Family Therapy (2016-2018, Dialogic Partners, University of Jyväskylä, Finland). Pina has considerable experience working with people experiencing psychosis and their families using dialogic approaches. She has worked for over 40 years in the community services of the Mental Health Department of Trieste (Italy), promoting person-centered and rights-based approaches to mental health. Pina is currently teaching OD in Italy, India, and Brazil.

Nobuhiko is a psychologist and psychotherapist, a member of the International and Psychological Support Association (IPSA), and an Open Dialogue trainer, family therapist, and trauma therapist in Japan. He finished the Open Dialogue Trainers' Training course in Finland and obtained the certificate that qualifies him to act as a responsible supervisor, trainer, and psychotherapist for the dialogical approach in couple and family therapy. IPSA has counseling offices in Tokyo and Osaka. He is interested in the approach through dialogue and focusing on body sensation.

TDB

Christine Aastrup Nyquist is a licenced psychologist with specialization in Clinical Adult Psychology.  From 2016 she had been working at the Medication-free treatment unit at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, and since 2021 she is the Head Unit Leader.

Stian Omar Kistrand is an expert by experience working at the Medication-free treatment unit since 2016. He is educated in relationship and network-oriented treatment for people with severe mental illness.

Bodil Øster is the Head of Adult Social Services in Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality; cand.mag. in Social Science and Educational Studies; Open Dialogue Practitioner. Bodil has been engaged for many years in the transformation of mental health services and social services towards recovery-oriented and dialogical practices.

Robert Whitaker is the author of four books, and co-author of a fifth, three of which tell of the history of psychiatry. In 2010, his Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness won the U.S. Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism. Prior to writing books, he worked as a science reporter at the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York for a number of years. He is the founder of madinamerica.com, a website that features research news and blogs by an international group of writers interested in “rethinking psychiatry.”

Martijn Kole has extensive experience suffering from psychiatric challenges and recovering from them. He is one of the initiators of Peer Supported Open Dialogue in the Netherlands and is one of the POD practitioners’ course teachers. As the founder of Enik Recovery College, in partnership with Tom Verspoor, he is a peer leader in the Netherlands and abroad. Enik RC is a one hundred percent peer-run, self-help peer support environment in the Netherlands.    

Cecilia Cruz Villarés is an occupational therapist and family therapist, certified in the Open Dialogue approach by the Institute for Dialogic Practice in New York. She holds a Master's degree in Mental Health from the Universidade Federal de São Paulo, where she worked from 1984 to 2017 in clinical research, publications, teaching, and supervision. The emphasis of her work is on the interface between culture and mental health, collaborative and dialogic practices with families, and the effects of stigmatization in the lives of people with mental health problems. She is active nationally and internationally in studying and combating the stigma related to mental disorders. At the NOOS Institute, since 2020, she has coordinated trainings on Dialogic Practices in Brazil and Portugal and acts as a teacher in Open Dialogues training programs in Latin America.

Daniel Fisher’s life purpose comes from his lived experience of recovery from schizophrenia, which inspired him to dedicate himself to helping others find their voice and recover. He earned an MD, completed his residency in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, and has practiced as a board-certified community psychiatrist for 30 years. In 1992, he co-founded the federally funded National Empowerment Center and currently serves as its executive director. He was a commissioner on the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

Anders Lindseth is Professor Emeritus for Practical Philosophy at the Centre for Practical Knowledge at Nord University. From 1974 to 1987, he taught philosophy at the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø and was a scholar at the uni­versities of Tübingen and Vienna; from 2007 to 2012, he was a member of the Committee for Higher Education in Norway, and; from 2016 to 2018, he taught ethics and philosophy of education at Hochschule für Philosophie in Munich. Anders is a meditation teacher at the Norwegian Acem-School of Meditation and the Münchner Volkshochschule. In 1989 he created Philosophical Practice in Tromsø, a practice which he now offers in Munich and at the Vienne University. Anders Lindseth is a member of the International Society for Philosophical Practice (ISPP) board and, since 2018, the leader of the scientific council of ISPP. He has participated as a practical philosopher at the annual International Network Meeting for the Treatment of Psychosis since 1997.

Jaakko Seikkula has been involved in developing family centred mental health care since the early 1980’s. This new approach was later named Open Dialogues. Jaakko was a member of the Western Lapland team in Finland from its inception. Since 1988, he has conducted multiple research projects on the effectiveness of the Open Dialogue approach, especially in the area of psychosis. At the same time, his interest has been to study dialogues as the basic form of human life and therapeutic practice. Lately Jaakko’s interest has been focused on researching the embodiment of dialogue, how we communicate in our bodies and create a relational mind. He has been active in publishing, as a single and co-author, about 190 scientific papers. Two of his books on dialogical practice have been translated into 15 languages.

Dr. Razzaque trained at the Royal London Hospital in the 1990s and he currently works as a Consultant Psychiatrist in northeast London, where he is also Director of Research. Additionally, he currently serves as an elected member of the Council of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and he is a Visiting Professor at London South Bank University. His particular field of clinical and research interest is mindfulness – which he has been a trainer in for over ten years – and Open Dialogue. He is currently leading a national initiative to bring Open Dialogue to the NHS, helping to coordinate an NIHR funded multi-centre randomised controlled trial.  He has also published numerous papers in this area in recent years in peer-reviewed journals.

Raffella Pocobello is the main researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology of the Italian National Research Council. Rafaella holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (Rome, Italy) and is trained in Open Dialogue in the UK. She is the primary investigator in projects to evaluate innovative mental health approaches such as Open Dialogue (HOPEnDialogue international study), Recovery Houses, and Co-produced Testing Centers, based on the principle “nothing about us without us," promoted by the international movement of mental health services users. Rafaella's main research activity aims to understand and evaluate the outcomes of these interventions, focusing on the analysis of cognitive, emotional, and social processes underlying the recovery of people who experience severe mental health issues.

Sebastian Von Petter is professor for mental health service research at Medical School Brandenburg. As a (critical) psychiatrist he leads a home treatment team at the University Hospital Rüdersdorf, near Berlin that currently implements Open Dialogue practices. Sebastian leads a research team on mental health service research, aiming at evaluating human psychiatric services and alternatives to them, mostly using collaborative and participatory approaches. Sebastian has been trained in Open Dialogue in 2009. Since then, he has contributed to implementing Open Dialogue in various hospital settings. Sebastian is part of the German Open Dialogue Network in Germany, in charge of the working group on research and evaluation.