XIX ANNUAL COURSE OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

Prof. Richard Bentall is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield and has previously held chairs at Liverpool University, Manchester University and Bangor University. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the British Academy.

He graduated with a BSc and then a PhD in experimental psychology at the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) and then completed his clinical training at Liverpool University. He also holds an MA in philosophy applied to health care awarded by University College Swansea (now Swansea University). His research interests have mainly focused on psychosis.

He has studied the cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved in psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, paranoid delusions and manic states, using methods ranging from psychological experiments, and experience sampling to functional magnetic resonance imaging. These studies have also examined why social risk factors (for example childhood adversities such as poverty, abuse, and bullying) provoke the cognitive and emotional changes that lead to these symptoms. In collaboration with colleagues at Manchester and elsewhere he has also conducted large scale randomized controlled trials of psychological interventions for people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and prodromal psychosis. During 2020-22, he led a project measuring the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK population.

He has published approximately 350 peer-review papers and a number of books, including Madness explained: Psychosis and human nature (Penguin, 2003) and Doctoring the mind: Why psychiatric treatments fail (Penguin, 2009). He is currently working on a book on extreme beliefs, including delusions, provisionally titled Delusions, democracy and the madness of crowds.

Prof. Thomas Jamieson Craig (Tom Craig) MD PhD FRCPsych: Emeritus Professor of Social Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College, London, Hon Consultant psychiatrist, South London and Maudsley Hospital and. Past President World Association of Social Psychiatry.

Tom qualified in medicine at the University of the West Indies and trained in psychiatry in Nottingham UK. He was appointed to Kings College London as the first UK Professor of Community Psychiatry in 1990. He worked clinically in South London where he led the closure and re-provision of a hospital asylum and the development of community mental health services. His clinical research focuses on developing and evaluating community-based psychiatric services and the promotion of these solutions at a National and International level. These programmes have included residential alternatives to the hospital asylum, studies of homeless mental health, specialised services for first episode psychosis and most recently, studies of AVATAR therapy for the treatment of auditory verbal hallucinations in psychosis.

Prof. Jacqui Dillon is an activist, author, and speaker, and has lectured and published worldwide on trauma, abuse, hearing voices, psychosis, dissociation, and healing. She is a key figure in the international Hearing Voices Movement, has co-edited three books, published numerous articles and papers and is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches. Jacqui is national Chair of ISPS UK, Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, Visiting Research Fellow at The Centre for Community Mental Health, Birmingham City University, a member of the Advisory Board at The Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care, St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, and a member of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Investigating Contemporary Social Ills at the University of Essex. Jacqui’s survival of childhood abuse and subsequent experiences of using psychiatric services inform her work, and she is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for relational and trauma-informed approaches to madness and distress. Jacqui is part of a collective voice demanding a radical shift in the way we understand and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. In 2017, Jacqui was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Psychology by the University of East London. 

See www.Jacquidillon.org

PhD Christine Ødegaard is a cultural scientist with an interdisciplinary PhD from the medical faculty of the University of Bergen, Norway. She defended her thesis called “Medication free treatment for people with psychosis: An explorative study of user perspectives on increased accept and support for patients choosing to discontinue anti-psychotic medication as treatment for psychosis' ' in June 2023. The study included four co-researchers with user experience.

She is currently a member of the Global Mental Health Research Group at the Department of Global Health and Community Medicine, University of Bergen. She is also a local politician elected for the City Council in Bergen, representing the Green Party.

Prof. Guillermo Rendueles graduated in medicine from the University of Salamanca (1971) and received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Seville (1980) with a thesis on the Freudian left. He began his work in 1972 as a resident physician at the Psychiatric Hospital of Oviedo.

There he participated in an anti-psychiatric movement that promoted the transformation of care for the mentally ill, which provoked a harsh repression by the Franco government and the dismissal of most of the doctors of this center. After doing his military service on the island of La Gomera, he continued to participate in the psychiatric renovation movements at the Psychiatric Hospital of Ciempozuelos and the Provincial Hospital of Girona. Since 1980 he has worked in Asturias as a psychiatrist for Insalud. Between 1980 and 1989 he was Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oviedo. In 1989 he joined the UNED as a tutor professor of Psychopathology in the associated center of Gijón. He has been a promoter of the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry, to the board of which he belonged. He has published a dozen books in several Spanish publishing houses and almost a hundred articles in different journals. For some of these works he has been awarded by the Royal Spanish Academy of Medicine (1982) and by the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry (1983).

Prof. Antonio Ceverino is degree in Medicine from the University of Seville, specialist in Psychiatry from Hospital Ramón y Cajal (Madrid), extraordinary award of Doctorate from the University of Alcalá in 2002.

Except for a period in which he worked in Drug Dependency in Malaga and Granada, he has served as a Psychiatrist at the Mental Health Center of Hortaleza, Hospital Ramón y Cajal (Madrid) from 2005 to the present. Psychiatrist simultaneously at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation in Madrid from 2004 to 2020, professor and supervisor at the Manantial Foundation, Scientific Director of the Institute of Victimology from 2004 to 2008, Psychiatrist cooperating in International Cooperation projects in Mental Health in Nicaragua, Peru and in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria. Author of several book chapters and articles in national and international journals of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and author and editor of the books "El psicoanálisis en las instituciones públicas" and "Salud mental y terapia grupal". Member of the Madrid branch of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and member of the Psychoanalysis Section of the AEN-Profesionales de Salud Mental.

Prof. Pedro Cuadrado is Psychiatrist and Licensed in Psychology. Psychiatrist at the Center for Attention to Victims of Abuse and Torture-SIRA since 2023. Supervisor of care teams and clinical cases in centers and units of the Mental Health Care Network of the Community of Madrid. I have been: Specialist Psychiatric Physician of the Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid with extensive clinical activity from 1988 to 2023, Coordinator responsible for the Program of Alcoholism, Other Addictions and Dual Pathology of the Mental Health Service Retiro and Vallecas Villa from 1998 to 2023, Head of the Mental Health Service Vallecas Villa from 2003 to 2023, Head of Psychiatry Section of Hospital Universitario Infanta Leonor de Madrid from 2014 to 2023 and President of the Madrid Association of Mental Health (AEN) from 2005 to 2011. Special interest in the organization of care, clinical management and psychotherapy of Severe Mental Disorder, Addictions and Dual Pathology.

Prof. Manuel González Molinier is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and group therapist, specialized in psychotic disorders. He works as a psychiatrist and coordinator of the Community Mental Health Unit of Fuengirola-Mijas (Malaga).

He is currently the coordinator of ISPS-Spain. Master in Psychotherapy Integrative Perspective (University of Alcalá). He is a tutor teaching collaborator of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Malaga and teaching collaborator of the resident training program of the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital of Malaga. Between 2015 and 2018 he implemented and developed the Group Program for Early Intervention in Psychosis at the CSMA of Horta (Barcelona). Since 2019 he coordinates and directs the Group Intervention Program in Psychosis in the area of Fuengirola-Mijas (Costa del Sol District, Malaga). He is the author of scientific articles on psychotherapy and psychosis, and collaborates with the digital media CTXT, where he has written popular texts on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and mental health.