Bio: Claudi Bockting is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. She has been affiliated with the Amsterdam University Medical Centers’ (location AMC) department of Psychiatry since 2017. She has held a post as professor at the University of Groningen’s Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences since 2010. From 2014 to 2017, she was professor of Clinical Psychology and head of the department of Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology at Utrecht University. Bockting is the recipient of, among other things, a prestigious grant from the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS, KNAW), a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS, University of Amsterdam), the Beck Institute Scholarship and an American Psychological Association (APA) and International Union of Psychological Science (IUPS) Global Mental Health fellowship at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Title: No health without mental health: understanding the dynamics of depression

Collaborations: Institute for Advanced Study, Peter Sloot, Denny Borsboom, Sacha Epskamp

Abstract: Common mental health disorders (depression and anxiety) are a worldwide epidemic and there is no evidence that the epidemic is subsiding. Depression is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease (WHO). Globally, more than 300 million people suffer from depression. Psychological and pharmacological treatments are effective treatments but only for half of treated patients. Further, relapse rates in depression after remission are unacceptably high. Evidence for leading theories that explain the onset and maintenance of depression is fragmented. Whereas, depression is seen as a disorder that is caused by interplay of mental-, biological, stress related- and societal factors that can change over time characterised by large individual differences. One of the main research challenges is to understand the causal interplay between these factors in order to explore new targets for prevention and treatment. In this talk a multidisciplinary project will be presented on how complexity modelling tools successfully can be applied and explored to understand the onset and maintenance of common mental health disorders like depression in order to explore new targets for prevention and treatment.