Presenters

Paul Lysaker PhD, Professor Indiana University

Paul is a clinical psychologist with over 25 years experience providing services to adults with severe mental illness. His teaching interests include teaching new mental health professionals to provide forms of psychotherapy that promote recovery for persons suffering from psychosis and has been developing the MERIT (Metacognitive Reflective and Insight Therapy) model of therapy for psychosis and other serious mental illness.
His research interests include understanding the roots of psychosocial dysfunction among persons with psychosis, as well as developing interventions that assist persons with psychosis to reject stigma, to succeed in a work setting and to forge a new positive personal identity.

Volkmar Aderhold MD PhD, Consultant Psychiatrist

As a specialist in psychotherapeutic medicine and psychotherapy, Volkmar was a senior physician at the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Hamburg for 11 years, where he was part of the implementation of a new approach for difficult to treat psychosis. He was also among the first to start the Voice Hearer network in Germany and a project to implement the Need Adapted Treatment Approach with dialogical practices in Germany.  Since 2007 he has worked as an independent clinician, consultant and trainer, primarily with recently established psychiatric services developing multi-professional outpatient teams, often including experts by experience.

Volkmar has developed teaching practices for Need Adapted Treatment (NATM) and Open Dialogue (OD) systemic approaches. He was co-lead trainer on the New York City Parachute Project and will be able to discuss the adaptation of the Finnish Open Dialogue Approach into peer supported services in various emerging European and American services. He has also published widely on the effectiveness and toxicity of neuroleptic treatment for people with psychosis.

Anna Arabskyj is a family member of someone who has experiences psychosis, and has been involved in Dialogically focused Network Meetings, through the intervention of the family therapist in the Early Intervention Service she was engaged with ion Leeds, UK. She says that psychosis happens to families – not just individuals.

Anna’s introductory talk at the recent ISPS UK conference on Open Dialogue has lead us to invite her to join us via videolink at this time, and she has kindly agreed to speak to us about her experiences of being part of Network meetings.

Vanessa Beavan PhD Senior Lecturer, School of Psychological Sciences, Australian College of Applied Psychology; Vice-president, ISPS Australia; book review editor for the ISPS journal, Psychosis.

Vanessa was a co-founder of the New Zealand Hearing Voices Network and is currently vice-president of the New South Wales Hearing Voices Network. She has a strong interest and research experience in the areas of psychosis and psychotic-like experience, peer-led recovery initiatives and psychological therapies for psychosis and other mental health troubles.

John Farhall PhD Associate Professor, Latrobe University

John has held a joint appointment with La Trobe’s Department of Psychology and Counselling and North Western Mental Health since 1992, building bridges between the public mental health services and university research and training. He teaches primarily in postgraduate professional programs and includes innovations in mental health care, psychopathology, therapy for psychotic disorders and evidence-based practice. His research is centred on understanding psychotic disorders, including evaluating and disseminating evidence-based psychological treatments for people who have psychotic disorders and understanding the disorder processes those treatments seek to address.

As an expert on CBT and ACT for Psychosis John will be reporting on the current research he is completing into the application and effectiveness of ACT for psychosis

Tara Hickey DClinPsych

Tara works as a clinical psychologist and mindfulness practitioner in public and private practice in Melbourne. She is a clinician in the PACE clinic at Orygen Youth Health. She has worked in early psychosis services in the UK as well as in an assertive outreach team in New York City. In early 2014, she trained in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) with its founder, Paul Gilbert, and a number of other linked modalities since. She is currently completing a PhD focusing on the development of a mindfulness programme for young people at risk of psychosis. Recently, she has been invited to be a member of Compassionate Mind Australia.

 John Hoult, MD Consultant Psychiatrist (retired)

John was leader researcher in a ground breaking Randomised Controlled Trial of a home-based, crisis service as an alternative to hospitalisation, in Sydney in the early 1980s, with significant improvements on outcome of traditional hospital based interventions. This service became the model for crisis services on NSW and around Australia. John then moved to England and spent 15 years implementing crisis services based on this model, in various NHS trusts. This model bears striking resemblances to the Open Dialogue model and arose at about the same time, based on similar objectives.

Debra Lampshire Senior Tutor, Auckland University, Philosopher, Expert-by-experience

Debra has the gift of being able to openly explore her experience of being “a voice hearer” as as an international speaker and trainer in the Working with Voices and other collaborative approaches

Lyn Mahboub BA Psych (hons) Communication & Cultural Studies. Richmond Fellowship WA Strategic Recovery Advisor and Hearing Voices Network Australia Liaison, Curtin University Consumer Academic and Board member ISPS Australia

Lyn will be discussing workforce development: Working with Voices and how to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of shifting from simply being trained to feeling confident to enact the training. Her work comes from the lived experience of mental illness and she is an expert trainer in Voice Dialogue and the Hearing Voices approach, especially the Maastricht Interview.

Eric Morris PhD is a clinical psychologist and the Director of the Psychology Clinic at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Eric moved back to Australia in 2014 after 15 years in the UK, having worked as a consultant clinical psychologist at the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and researched ACT for psychosis at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. He is a founder and past chair of the BABCP ACT Special Interest Group, a co-editor of ACT and Mindfulness for Psychosis and co-author of the self-help guide, ACTivate Your Life: Using Acceptance and Mindfulness to Build a Life That Is Rich, Fulfilling and Fun

John Read PhD Professor, Swinburne University

After working for nearly 20 years as a Clinical Psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, Dr Read joined the University of Auckland, New Zealand. There he published over 100 papers in research journals, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events and psychosis.He also researches the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health.

John is on the Executive Committee of the ISPS International and editor of the ISPS’s scientific journal ‘Psychosis’. In February 2015, Dr Read took up the post of Professor of Clinical Psychology at Swinburne University of Techonology in Melbourne. His books include:

Read, J., Dillon, J. (Eds.). (2013). Models Of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis, Second Edition.. Routledge
Geekie, J., Randal, P., Lampshire, D., Read, J, (Eds.). (2012). Experiencing Psychosis: Personal and Professional Perspectives. Routledge.
Read, J., Sanders P. (2010). A Straight Talking Introduction to the Causes of Mental Health Problems. PCCS Books.
Geekie, J., Read, J. (2010). Making Sense of Madness: Contesting the Meaning of Schizophrenia. Routledge.

Professor Alan Rosen, AO, FRANZCP, MRCPsych, DPM, MB.BS., Grad Dip PAS., Professorial Fellow, School of Public Health, Faculty of Health & Behavioural Sciences, University of Wollongong; Clinical Associate Professor, Mental Health Policy Unit, Brain & Mind Research Institute, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney

Research interests: Evidence Based modules of Community Mental Health Services; Aboriginal & Remote Mental Health; Stigma, Discrimination and Human Rights; Outcomes studies and Impaired Practitioners.

As a member of the original RCT study of mobile crisis and assertive community care with John Hoult, Alan will address the parallels between Open Dialogue, Italian mental health reforms and social systems & family interventions practised in the person’s home from 1979 in North Shore Sydney. Particular issues to be raised will be  the value and potency of regular, respectful and  non-intrusive home visits,  the active involvement of the family and wider social network, and implications for OD implementation and workforce training.

 

Dr Campbell Thorpe MB BS FRANZCP

Campbell is a child and adolescent psychiatrist working in public and private practice in Melbourne, working with young people and families with psychosis, anorexia nervosa and obsessive compulsive disorder. After 10 years based at Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service, he is the principle psychiatrist with the newly established headspace Youth Early Psychosis Program for the South Eastern Melbourne site.

The recent establishment of the headspace Youth Early Psychosis Programs (hYEPP) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to develop a values based and need adapted treatment system. Starting from values of respect, partnership, empathy, excellence, self-determination, integrity and accountability the service is being developed around adapting the core principals of Open Dialogue to the local Victorian context. Local adaptation has incorporated peer and family collaboration, client directed outcome informed therapy, recovery college concepts and elements derived from single session family consultation. This is an opportunity to reflect on progress to date and create a dialogue around the next steps for program development.

David Ward MB CHB FRCPSYCH FRANZCP, Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland and recently appointed Director of Adolescent Psychiatry at RBWH

David trained in the United Kingdom where he commenced work as a Consultant in 1999. He moved to the Fraser Coast in 2011 and obtained FRANZCP in 2013. Dr Ward has been involved in teaching and training for a variety of disciplines for many years, lecturing both at Newcastle and Northumberland Universities in the North East of England. He also worked as the Training Programme Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Whilst in the UK Dr Ward was involved in the development of Early Intervention in Psychosis Services on a Local and National basis. The Local initiatives gained National recognition in 2006 and 2011 for ‘achievements in integration’. Dr Ward was also on the working group and was co-author of the NICE Guidelines for ‘The Recognition and Management of Psychosis in Young People’, guidelines which are well regarded both UK wide and internationally. Dr Ward is currently a member of the board of ISPS Australia.

David’s talk will be on the theme of Organisational Systems, and how to deliver care for young service users and their families, with emphasis on early intervention in psychosis – how to provide a fair deal for children and adolescents.