Depression, Anxiety and Stress Management

Dr. Kathy sexton-Radek has received her Doctorate of Philosophy degree from Illinois institute of Technology in 1989 and interned at Rush Medical University 1988-1989 in Sleep Medicine, Behavioural Medicine, Geriatric Psychology and Health Psychology rotations. Currently, she is working as Professor in Elmhurst College, Psychology Department since 1988. She received her board certification in Behavioural sleep Medicine. She completed a two year post- Doctorate Certificate program in Clinical Psychopharmacology which included a year long preceptor ship with psychiatry and pulmonary medicine rotation.

Behavioral Medicine/Health Psychology, Sleep quality in young adults, Factors particular to cognitive functioning, personality style, and health practices have been examined with regard to sleep quality in emerging young adults aged 18-25 years old, Examination of the utility of conflict-resolution programming in school settings.

Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Portland, Oregon, Christopher Coe divided his adult residency between New York City and Paris. His professional life combined a number of interests, including photography, cabaret singing, and writing. For a time, at Columbia University, Coe was a student of novelist and editor Gordon Lish, whose predilection for semiautobiographical material and self-revealing first-person narration can also be traced in Coe’s work. Coe’s first novel I Look Divine, for example, chronicles the life of a character named Nicholas, for whom identity resides in physical beauty, as embodied especially in the face. Coe seems to have shared his character’s preoccupation about appearance. In a 1987 interview, the writer half-jokingly asserted that he dropped out of Columbia University partially because of his personal dismay over a bad photograph on his student identification card. As the character Nicholas avows, “Inner beauty is what counts, but outer beauty is what shows.” Significant autobiographical elements can also be found in Coe’s second and most celebrated work, Such Times. Like the narrator Timothy, Coe was devoted for a number of years to an older lover, with whom he purchased an apartment in Paris. Timothy measures the beginning of his life from the time that he met Jasper, but the “control” that he exercises in his career as a photographer does not extend to his romantic life. Despite the younger man’s desire for an exclusive relationship, Jasper argues that monogamy is “antithetical to the homosexual life” and, consequently, indulges in episodes of anonymous sex. Timothy’s reconciliation to this state of affairs is the dramatic heart of the book. “Everything that has come to me has come because I loved without demands,” he asserts. From Jasper, he acquires a taste for fine clothing and haute cuisine, the experience of “ecstatic sex,” and, perhaps, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). To preserve his idealized image of their relationship, Timothy has unsafe sex with a stranger so that if he does test positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, he will not know for sure whether Jasper infected him. Timothy does test seropositive and so did Christopher Coe. Character and author, because they lacked medical insurance, were also virtually bankrupted by the costs of their health care. That Timothy’s fictional life partially mirrored Coe’s adds poignancy to the narrative.

Dr. Frederick Foley's s areas of interest are clinical diagnosis; cognitive therapy; family therapy; psychoneuroimmunology; multiple sclerosis; and spinal cord injury.

Esther Louise Sabban, completed her PhD and postdoctoral training at New York University Medical Center. Currently, she is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of Laboratory of Stress-Related Disorders at New York Medical College. She is past-president of the Catecholamine Society and Secretary/Treasurer of Endocrine and Metabolism Section of American Physiological Association. She has published over 160 peer reviewed articles, and co-authored 4 books on molecular and neuroendocrine aspects of stress. She is currently on the editorial boards of American Journal of Hypertension and of Stress and is a handling editor for the Journal of Neurochemistry.

Dr. Peter W. Tuerk is a Research Director at Virtually Better. He is a scientist-practitioner who specializes in behavioral health intervention, research, and the integration of technology into clinical education and evidence-based protocols for the treatment of anxiety related disorders. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia, and is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences within the Military Sciences Division at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston SC. Dr. Tuerk serves as Section Chief of the PTSD Clinical and Telehealth program at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, an innovative clinic which has expanded the delivery of evidence-based behavioral specialty care locally and to 10 associated facilities in three states via telehealth technologies, including home-based telehealth intervention. He conducts research and clinical trials focused on the enhancement and dissemination of evidence based treatments for anxiety and the integration of technology into normative mental health care settings. Dr. Tuerk has significant experience in clinical training and provider adoption/rejection of mobile applications and supportive technologies for use with existing behavioral health treatment modalities, serving as a trainer for the DoD, VA, and NGOs in international settings. He has served as PI, site-PI, Co-I, or Consultant on 18 federally- and industry- funded grants and is currently active in the dissemination of public health information via peer-reviewed scientific publications, web-based media, and as a selected Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) Talk presenter.

Dr. Tuerk chaired the VA National Strategy Taskforce to Promote Evidence Based Treatments via Telehealth and serves as editor for Springer International’s Behavioral Telehealth Series. He was recently named a Top 100 producer in the U.S. Purpose Economy for scientific and clinical contributions, and is the recipient of VA’s highest honor, the Olin E. Teague Award for “outstanding achievement in the rehabilitation of war-injured veterans.”

Dr. Kathi J. Kemper was recruited to Ohio State in October 2012 from Wake Forest University, where she held the Caryl J. Guth Chair for Complementary and Integrative Medicine and served as the founding director of the Center for Integrative Medicine. She also was a professor in the departments of Social Science/Health Policy and Pediatrics and held appointments in Family and Community Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, Bioethics, the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Hypertension and Vascular Research Center. Before joining Wake Forest, Dr. Kemper was the founding director of the Center for Holistic Pediatric Education and Research at Boston Children's Hospital and associate professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kemper is recognized internationally as the leading authority on complementary therapies for children, and is frequently consulted by media, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, Readers' Digest, Redbook, First for Women and USA Today.

Yiqun Gan is a professor at the Department of Psychology, Peking University, China. She has received her Ph.D.\r\nin the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1998. She has published over 70 research papers, among which 18\r\nwere on internationally referred journals as the first or corresponding author. She has been in charge of a number\r\nof research projects, including projects funded by Natural Science Foundation of China. She serves on the\r\nexecutive editorial board of \"Chinese Journal of Mental Health\" and is a reviewer for 17 international journals.\r\nHer research area focuses on coping, mental health, and job burnout.

Barbara Juen is holding the position of Associate Professor at University of Innsbruck. Her research has been mainly focused on psychotraumatology and acute interventions after emergencies and disasters. She has been acting as Scientific Advisor for IFRC reference center, Australian Red Cross and European network for psychosocial support. She has taught subjects on Crisis Intervention and Management and consulted various organizations in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Iceland, Israel, India, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Croatia. Her contribution for European Union include projects on “Post Tsunami”, Lay Counselling, OPSIC, PrepAge and PrepCap.

Psychotraumatology and Acute Interventions after Emergencies and Disasters

Dr. Kevin Thomas is an associate professor at the Department of Psychology at UCT. He has a PhD in clinical psychology, with a specialty in neuropsychology. Dr. Thomas received training in pediatric neuropsychology under Professor Eileen Fennell at the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL). He has been involved in autism research at UCT since arriving in Cape Town in 2005.

Cognitive and Clinical Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Cognitive Aging Meta-analysis Stress, Anxiety, and Trauma

Dr. Fountoulakis received his medical degree (1989), performed his residency in psychiatry (1998), and earned his doctorate in psychiatry (1999) at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received a 3-year fellowship in psychosomatic medicine and a 1-year postdoctoral fellowship for research from the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece. Until 2003 he served as a medical officer in the Greek Armed forces retired with the rank of major. In 2005, Dr. Fountoulakis was a Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Neuropsychiatry, at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. In 2009 was appointed member and in 2012-14 chair of the Greek Ministry of Health Committee for the Administrative, Economic and Scientific Supervision of the Mental Health Units of the deinstitutionalization project. In 2013 was appointed chair of the Independent Committee of Experts for the Assessment of Mental Health Services of the Greek Ministry of Health. He chairs the ISNP and since 2006, he served as Secretary, since 2008 as co-chair, and currently as Chair of the Private Practice Section and currently is chair of the section of Research Methods in Psychiatry, of the World Psychiatric Association. He served as Chair of the CINP Credentials and Membership Committee (2010-12) and currently he chairs the Neuropsychological and Psychometric Instruments Section, of the Greek Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Fountoulakis’ areas of clinical and research interest are reflected in the topics that he teaches: general psychiatry, biological psychiatry, psychopharmacology, mood disorders, schizophrenia and personality disorders.

Martín Correa-Urquiza has done PhD in anthropology of medicine and international health from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2006-2008), Master and diploma in anthropology by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2000-2004), Master in Public Opinion and advertising by the Latin American Faculty of social sciences (1996-1997) and Bachelor\\\'s degree in Sciences of communication science from the University of Buenos Aires (1989-1994). He has worked as a teacher at the University Rovira i Virigili, in the graduate school at the University of Porto Alegre (Brazil), at the University School of the Red Cross and in the master of Health Mental community of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Currently he serves as Professor at the Universiadd Rovira i Virigili and at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). He is founder and coordinator of the Mental health, communication and participation project: Radio Nikosia.

Media, active social participation, Mental Health, Madness, Prostitution, Identity, Anthropology and Complicity

Since 1982 Dr. Müller is getting training in psychiatry, psychotherapy and neurology at the University Hospital of LMU Munich. Since 1990 he has been acting as senior psychiatrist and consultant, Psychiatric Hospital, LMU Munich. He got appointed as Head of the schizophrenia special ward since 1998; Head of the research-ward for Psychoneuroimmunology and endocrinology since 2011; Head of the working group Psychoneuroimmunology; Co-chair of the working group ‘History of Psychiatry’ and Head of the Tourette’s and OCD research group and outpatient services. He is responsible for the new-building and reconstruction of the Kraepelinian Hospital. Since 2000 he has been serving as Professor of Psychiatry.

Psychoneuroimmunology, schizophrenia, depression, movement disorders, Tourette research, global mental health

Peter Vlerick, PhD, received his MA and PhD in Psychology from Ghent University Belgium. He obtained his PhD for a thesis on antecedents and consequences of burnout in general hospital nurses. Currently, he is Assistant Professor in economic psychology at the Department of Personnel Management, Work and Organizational Psychology of Ghent University, Belgium. He is now involved in research on the relationship between employee well-being and customer satisfaction.

Relationship between employee well-being and customer satisfaction

Timothy Lau, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C)., M.Sc. is a Distinguished Teacher with the Faculty of Medicine, Associate Professor, Director of the Residency Training Program, Clinical Lead, Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Unit at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. Dr. Lau is a member of the Royal College Examination Board, the interim Chair of the test committee for the Royal College, the Royal College Specialty Committee, and the Standing Committee on Education with the Canadian Psychiatric Association. He is the Chair of the directors of undergraduate psychiatric education for Canada and Chair of the Board of Directors for Maryvale Academy. He is the Founding President of the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians\' Societies and has been an invited speaker both nationally and internationally on various topics including Dementia, the DSM 5, parenting and human happiness.

Ethics, Professionalism, Happiness and Leadership

Jana (Darejan) Javakhishvili is a clinical psychologist who has been working in trauma research, training and treatment since 1995. Since 2002 she has been heavily engaged in the field of conflict transformation as a facilitator for peace building processes in Georgia and the South Caucasus. Jana currently works for the Foundation Global Initiative on Psychiatry– Tbilisi, directs Institute of Addiction Studies (Addictology) at Ilia State University. She is a co-founder and teacher at the two innovative masters programs in the same university: Mental Health Masters Program (functional since 2012) and Addictology Masters Program (starting in 2015). In June 2013 she was elected as a president of the Georgian Society of Psychotrauma, since July of the same year she became a Secretary of the European Society of Traumatic Stress Studies board of directorshttps. She is a Contact Person for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma in the South Caucasus. She is co-author and co-editor of a number of books and scientific articles in Georgian, Russian and English published in Georgia, Armenia, England, Norway, Russia and the United States.

Trauma research, Conflict transformation, Mental Health and Addicology

A graduate of Melbourne (MB BS Hons, MD) and Oxford (DPhil) Universities, Professor Fink is Hon Professor in the Centre for Neuroscience, University of Melbourne and Professorial Research Fellow of the Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria (MHRI) of which he was formerly Executive Director. His research is published in more than 360 scientific publications including the award winning Encyclopedia of Stress of which he is founding editor and the Handbook of Neuroendocrinology.

George Fink is an expert in neuroendocrinology, neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology with special interest in reproduction, stress and the pathogenesis of mental disorders.

Dr. Crisanto Diez-Quevedo is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, since 1991, and senior psychiatrist at Germans Trias I Pujol University Hospital, Badalona, Spain. He obtained his Medical Degree in 1985 and his PhD in 1992, both at Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. He has coauthored more than 40 scientific papers, as well as several book chapters. He has also participated in the organizing committee of the 23 editions (since 1993) of the International Symposium about Current Issues and Controversies in Psychiatry, which is held annually in Barcelona, Spain.

His clinical and research activities have focused for many years in the relationship between psychiatric and medical disorders, with special expertise but not exclusively in: - Management of mental disorders in chronic hepatitis C patients - Management of mental disorders in patients living with HIV / AIDS - Management of mental disorders in chronic heart failure patients - Assessment of candidates to renal transplantation and life donors Research Interest - Psychosomatic Psychiatry - Prognostic implications of depressive disorders in chronic medical disorders (chronic infectious diseases, chronic heart failure) - Biological mechanisms of the relationship of depressive and other medical disorders, especially inflammation.

He trained in the United States, and the lure of a successful medical practice seemed well-paved for him in the land of milk and honey. Yet, he decided to give up his green card and return to the Philippines to practice. In return, he became the Father of Child Psychiatry in the country and a highly respected authority in this seemingly uncharted and still misunderstood field of medicine. Dr. Cornelio G. Banaag, Jr. is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist based in Manila, Philippines. Dr. Banaag is also a Consultant to the Programme on Substance Abuse of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland and Coordinator of the WHO Project on Street Children and Substance Abuse in the Philippines. He is currently a Consultant with the National Project on Street Children in the Philippines and Head of the Child Psychiatry Division of the Philippine Children's Medical Center. He is a member of the board of trustees of several non-government organizations such as Kaisahan Buhay Foundation, Inc., Community and Family Services International, TASH Foundation (based in India). He has written a book on Resiliency and has written numerous published articles. He was an Assistant Professor at the Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 1985 - 1989. Dr. Banaag is Fellow and past President for three terms of the Philippine Psychiatric Association. He is an International Member of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi International Honor Society, Philippine Chapter. Dr. Cornelio P. Banaag, an expert in Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatry. He is Professor and immediate past Chairperson of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital. Currently the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at The Medical City General Hospital, Metro Manila, President of the ASEAN Federation for Psychiatry and Mental Health (AFPMH) and Honorary Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 9th AFPMH Congress and 13th Child Psychiatry Forum to be held in the Philippines in December 2003.

Biology and Genetics of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Dr. Konečni has three primary research interests within experimental/social psychology. The first of these is a social-psychological analysis of legal decision-making. Second is psycho-aesthetics, the psychology of art, music, and theatre. And finally, he does work on the social, cognitive, and psychophysiological aspects of human emotion and motivation.

Social-psychological analysis of legal decision-making, psycho-aesthetics, social, cognitive, and psychophysiological aspects of human emotion and motivation

Esther Martinez is an associate professor of the Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She obtained her Bachelor degree in Psychology from Universitat de Barcelona in 2005 and received her PhD in Psychiatry from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2012. She did a predoctoral stay at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm (2010). Her research focuses on the study of fear and anxiety and emotional learning (from rats to humans). In particular, she is interested in how stressors can modulate fear conditioning via HPA axis dysregulation or amygdala dysfunction. As a therapist, she has been focused on anxiety disorders and stress. She has co-authored more than 15 scientific articles and has six publications in first quartile journals. She has also coorganised several scientific conferences.

The focus of her research is to study the anxiety. Not only when it is conceived as state or even a disorder, but also as a trait. For instance, some individuals seem to be more vulnerable to a threat than others, with a highly responsive HPA system, e.g. releasing more corticosterone “the stress hormone” to the bloodstream and showing a “freezer” behavioral profile. In the animal laboratory of Dr. Alberto Fernández Teruel there is a great example of this phenomenon: the Roman Low Avoidance rat, which was psychogenetically selected for its high anxiety levels. To what extent does anxiety affect other processes like cognition and learning and other body functions (immune system)? For her doctoral thesis, there were found some associations between levels of stress, behavioral anxiety and susceptibility to neuroinflammation, showing the intricate relationship among all the variables. After her early-researcher stage, at the prospect of performing translational studies, she enrolled the human laboratory of Dr. Rafael Torrubia, aiming to study the psychological processes affected by stress and their neurobiological bases, mainly in children and young adults with risk factors.

Dr. Tommaso Farma was Head Psychiatrist in Inpatient Day Hospital Psychiatric Department and Outpatient Psychiatric Department at General Hospital Vimercate (Milano) Italy. Year 1986 onwards, he has served as a family doctor, family systemic therapist, MD psychiatrist and acupuncture practice. He holds a certificate on Adult Attachment Interview from University of California. He was vice president at EMDR Italy and SISST board member. Currently he is ESTSS board member, Chief of ESTSS Certification Committee and Co-chair of Treatment task force and Professor in Masters of psycho - traumatology .

Trauma focused psychotherapies, Attachment and Neuroscience discoveries.

Dr. Diana Kljenak is an Assistant Professor and a Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Lead for the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry. She is a staff psychiatrist in the Community Mental Health Program at the University Health Network in Toronto and a consulting psychiatrist for the Central Toronto and Regent Park Community Health Centers. Her primary teaching and clinical interests include both collaborative care and psychotherapy. She is a Psychotherapy Coordinator at the UHN Centre for Mental Health as well as the CBT Psychotherapy Core Curriculum Block Coordinator and CBT seminar co-lead. She is a collaborative care supervisor and CBT supervisor at the UHN Centre for Mental Health. Dr. Kljenak is the President of the Ontario Psychiatric Association and a Co-chair of the Ontario Coalition of Psychiatrists. She is active in the Canadian Psychiatric Association as a member of its Membership Affairs Committee. Dr. Kljenak was formerly a co-chair of the Collaborative Mental Health Working Group at the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry and Department of Family and Community Medicine. She serves on the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry Faculty Development, Continuing Professional & Practice Development and Psychotherapy Committee. She is an accreditation reviewer for the Department of Psychiatry through University of Toronto Office of Continuing Education and Professional Development. Her continuous medical education activities include organizing a very successful Bi-Annual UHN Department of Psychiatry Community Education Day, now in its 5th year as well as co-chairing Continuing Professional & Practice Development Conference Planning Committee. Dr.Kljenak is a sought-after speaker and has presented at provincial, national and international conferences. Dr. Kljenak has also been invited as a visiting professor to University of Tampere and Southern Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Centre, Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Kljenak received the Best Poster Award, third place at the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s 61st Annual Conference.

Dr. Kljenak’s interests include continuous medical education, interprofessional education, public education, collaborative care and psychotherapy. Her special interest is in the development of a higher level of course evaluation that would reflect how CME enhances competency and performance.