Meet the Experts Speakers

Christoph Correll Charité - Universitätsmedizin KJP, Berlin, Germany

Christoph Correll

Plenary:

Early detection of people at clinical high-risk for bipolar disorder

Many psychiatric disorders break out at an early age and thus interrupt essential biopsychosocial development and maturation processes. In this context, preventive psychiatry is becoming increasingly important in order to either prevent or delay the onset of illnesses or to minimize the progression, severity and interference with participation of the respective illness. Early detection and early intervention of psychosis have the longest tradition in psychiatry. Due to overlapping prodromal symptoms, early detection and early intervention for bipolar disorders have now also advanced. In addition, there are increasing data in youth and adults at clinical high-risk for bipolar disorder (CHR-BD). However, prodromal symptoms are relatively nonspecific and are associated with various psychiatric disorders, particularly early in life, so that the predictive value of subsyndromal symptoms is difficult to assess. The principles and lessons learned from the last 20 years of clinical high-risk research in psychosis can inform to some degree prevention approaches for bipolar disorder, yet specific clinical and biological aspects of bipolar disorder and its risk stages must also be taken into account. This session will provide an opportunity to engage in discussions about prevention psychiatry in the area of bipolar disorder.

About Christoph:

Christoph U. Correll is Professor of Psychiatry at The Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, New York, USA, and also Professor and Chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany. He completed his medical studies at the Free University of Berlin in Germany, and Dundee University Medical School in Scotland. He is board certified in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry, having completed both residencies at The Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York. Since 1997, he has been working and conducting research in New York, USA, and since 2017 he is also working in Germany again.

Professor Correll focuses on the identification and treatment of youth and adults with severe mental illness, clinical trials, epidemiology, psychopharmacology, meta-analyses, and the interface between physical health and mental health.
He has authored or co-authored over 900 journal articles that have been cited more than 79.000 times and received over 40 research awards for his work. In June 2024, his H-index was 143 in Google Scholar.
Since 2014, the beginning of this metric, he has been listed every year by Clarivate/Web of Science as one of the “most influential scientific minds” and “top 1% cited scientists in the area of psychiatry” (https://hcr.clarivate.com).
Additionally, Dr. Correll has been holding numerous Expertscape rankings based on the number of publications and citations in the past 10 years, including being ranked consistently since 2017 as the number one cited world expert in >10 areas, including “central nervous system agents”, “psychotropic drugs“, “schizophrenia”, “schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders”, “antipsychotics”, “delayed action preparations” and “weight gain”.

Jackie Curtis Mindgardens Neuroscience Network, Australia

Jackie Curtis

Plenary:

Breaking the Boundaries between physical and mental health

The seeds of physical health multi-morbidity in people living with mental ill health frequently commence early in the course of illness and is often compounded by significant health inequalities which together, can lead to premature mortality. The session will provide an opportunity to share and discuss the implementation of practical tools and strategies to tackle health inequalities and improve physical health in youth mental health services right from the start. The role of grass roots initiatives as well as international collaborations will be highlighted with plenty of opportunity for Q and A.

About Jackie:

Professor Jackie Curtis is a youth psychiatrist and the inaugural Executive Director of the Mindgardens Neuroscience Network and the Clinical Lead of Youth Mental Health at the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia. She is Conjoint Professor in the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health at University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Her research and clinical work over several decades has focused on early psychosis and youth mental health, including improving the cardiometabolic health of people living with serious mental disorders, with the aim of reducing health inequalities and increasing life expectancy. Jackie developed and implemented the internationally recognised Keeping the Body in Mind program, demonstrating that antipsychotic-induced weight gain can be prevented with lifestyle intervention. Jackie also led the development of the clinician guide: "Positive Cardiometabolic Health resource"-which has been adapted internationally. Along with Dr David Shiers, she is the co-founder and Co-Chair of the iphYs international working group advocating for improved physical health for youth experiencing psychosis which is auspiced by IEPA
Jackie was an invited committee member of the World Health Organisation working group for the international guidelines: management of physical health conditions in adults with severe mental disorders.
In 2023 she was the recipient of the prestigious Margaret Tobin Award from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists for her contributions to public psychiatry.
Jackie is an enthusiastic and long standing member of IEPA.

Mykhaylo Pustovoyt Ivano-Frankivsk State Medical University, Ukraine

Mykhaylo Pustovoyt

Plenary:

The Self-Systems in the Military During Direct Russian Hostilities in Ukraine

This presentation offers a psychoanalytic perspective on the functioning of the Self-system in Ukrainian military personnel who directly participated in combat operations following the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation. Drawing on the Narcissism Inventory, an empirical study was conducted with 83 servicemen undergoing treatment and rehabilitation. The obtained data enabled a qualitative analysis of narcissistic vulnerability, fragmentation of the Self, and compensatory mechanisms that emerge under conditions of extreme stress and trauma. To deepen the psychodynamic interpretation, three clinical case vignettes are presented, illustrating varied psychological responses to physical injuries, loss, and disruptions in internal cohesion. The findings are discussed through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, with particular attention to narcissistic defenses, the disintegration–reintegration processes of the Self, and the formation of new symbolic structures following the collapse of internal representations. This presentation aims to contribute to a more profound understanding of the internal psychological shifts experienced by soldiers and to underscore the relevance of psychoanalytically informed approaches in therapeutic and rehabilitative work with trauma-exposed military populations.

Ulrich Reininghaus Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany

Ulrich Reininghaus

Plenary:

Recent advances in developing, evaluating and implementing ecological momentary interventions for improving youth mental health and well-being

In recent years, the field of digital mental health has received increasing attention in national and international youth mental health research. However, a key challenge remains to harness more fully the translational chain from bench to bedside or, much rather, to living environments and real-world settings. This appears ever more important, given that transferability, uptake, scalability, sustainability and, hence, public health impact of evidence-based digital innovations in youth mental health research remains limited. This talk will provide an overview of new developments and challenges in ecological translation of digital interventions in public mental health provision, with a particular view to developing, evaluating, and implementing adaptive ecological momentary interventions in youth as a priority target population. Ecological translation pursues the strategy of a) identifying momentary risk and protective mechanisms in diverse socio-environmental contexts and settings across the continuum of mental health and, b) translating this into novel digital interventions and services – ecological momentary interventions (EMI) in particular – that target these mechanisms, contexts and settings in real time and in young people’s living environments. While promising in scope, particular attention needs to be paid to configuring ecological momentary interventions in such a way as to include, rather than marginalize further, vulnerable populations, and reduce, rather than accelerate, social and ethnic inequalities in youth mental health. This and other challenges will be discussed in the light of directions for future research.

About Ulrich:

Ulrich Reininghaus is Professor and Head at the Department of Public Mental Health, Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH), Mannheim, and a Visiting Professor at the Health Service and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. His main research interests are in the ecological translation of evidence-based innovations in public mental health provision using innovative participatory, evaluation, and implementation science frameworks and cutting-edge digital technology for delivering evidence-based mental health promotion, mental disorder prevention and mental health care. To this end, his work seeks to identify momentary risk and protective mechanisms, socio-environmental contexts and settings across the continuum of mental health and, in a next step, translate this into novel digital interventions and services – ecological momentary interventions (EMI) in particular – that target these mechanisms, contexts and settings in real time and in the real world.
Professor Reininghaus was awarded a Ph.D. by Queen Mary University of London in 2011. He trained as a postdoc at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, and the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. His interest in innovative digital assessment and intervention then led him to work at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Maastricht University, where he was last appointed as Associate Professor before he moved to CIMH in 2018 to head the newly established Department of Public Mental Health. Professor Reininghaus has been awarded several competitive fellowships for his work, including by the UK National Institute for Health Research, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and most recently a Heisenberg Professorship by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His current work is funded by several grants, including from the EU, ZonMW, BMBF, BMG, DFG, and MWK.

Jo Robinson Orygen, Australia

Jo Robinson

Plenary:

Right here, right now. What are the current drivers of youth suicide and how can we tackle them?

Preventing suicide is a significant public health challenge globally. Rates of suicide and suicide-related behaviour vary across different sectors of the population and in different regions but in many parts of the world suicide is the leading cause of death in young people. The pathways to suicide are complex and different frameworks and theories exist to help us understand the role that both social determinants (e.g., legislative or regulatory frameworks such as firearm ownership), and individual / contextual factors (e.g., mental ill-health, exposure to suicide, and entrapment or hopelessness) play in increasing risk of suicide and suicide-related behaviour. Accordingly, approaches to suicide prevention can seek to tackle the social determinants that may contribute to increased risk or target the individual risk factors among people already displaying suicidal behaviour. Such approaches are typically classified as: universal interventions which are delivered across the population regardless of level of risk (e.g., restricting access to means of suicide); selective interventions which target sub-groups of the population who may be at elevated risk (e.g., programs for people bereaved by suicide); and indicated interventions that target people already displaying suicidal behaviour (e.g., clinical interventions delivered to people who have made a suicide attempt). In this session, Professor Jo Robinson will briefly outline current approaches to suicide prevention, with a specific focus on: (i) young people; (ii) the potential role of new technology and social media; and (iii) involving young people with lived experience. She will then facilitate a broad discussion about the current challenges and opportunities in suicide prevention.

About Jo:

Jo Robinson AM is a Professor at Orygen, the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, where she leads the suicide prevention research unit.

Prof Robinson’s work focuses on the development, and testing, of novel interventions that specifically target at risk youth across settings, on evidence synthesis, and on the translation of research evidence into practice and policy. Her work has a strong focus on the potential of social media platforms in suicide prevention. This includes the development of the #chatsafe guidelines, the first evidence-based best practice guidelines for safe peer-peer communication about suicide online.

Prof Robinson also has a keen interest in policy development and evaluation and has led the development of two major policy reports and is regularly called upon to provide advice to both state and federal government. She is a member of the Self-injury Advisory Group for Meta and was an advisory board member for the Oprah Winfrey production The Me You Can’t See.
She is Vice President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention.

Therese van Amelsvoort Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Therese van Amelsvoort

Plenary:

YOUTHreach: bridging gaps in mental health support: a comprehensive European strategy

Europe should be prepared for a mental health crisis that will last for decades, impacting on long-term health outcomes and economic productivity of our current generation of youth. The present mental healthcare system fails to match their needs: 50% of European youth have unmet mental health needs, and only ~30% receive appropriate care. YOUTHreach aims to tackle the expanding European youth mental health crisis by bridging gaps in mental health support and provide a comprehensive European strategy. YOUTHreach will evaluate (cost-)effectiveness of 3 existing and accessible innovative interventions for prevention and early intervention of mental ill-health in youth, that have been developed and tested in co-creation with youth: 1) walk-in youth mental health support centres, operational in 6 European countries and Australia; 2) a guided self-help mHealth intervention operational in 1 European country; 3) clinical and peer-moderated digital treatment platforms, operational in 2 European countries and Australia. In addition, feasibility and acceptability at new sites across Europe will be tested. Best practice recommendations will be developed and built with existing and new data, into an integrated European youth mental health framework. Finally, awareness and accessibility of these interventions among policymakers (including HTA bodies), sociologists, ethicists, healthcare professionals, citizens and the target group will be increased. YOUTHreach activities will benefit from engagement of and co-creation with young people. We will present an overall outline of the project, and discuss each of the 3 interventions in more detail. The expected impact of YOUTHreach will be discussed.