ESTD - AFTD Conference 2023

When Attachment Meets Trauma:
Disorganization and Dissociation From Childhood to Adulthood.

Preconference Workshops and Conference

DoubleTree Brussels Hotel, 9 - 11 March 2023 - Brussels

Conference Committees

The organization of this congress is the result of an intense collaboration between the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD) and the Association francophone du Trauma et de la Dissociation (AFTD). Please find here the members of our Local Organising Committee and the members of the Scientific Committee who will be responsible of the selections of the abstracts for the Posters.

Local Organising Committee

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Adélaïde Blavier

Adélaïde Blavier, PhD, is a doctor in psychology and professor at the University of Liège where she directs the Centre d'Expertise en Psycho-traumatisme et Psychologie Légale. In this context, she is responsible for the clinical consultation in psycho-traumatology and psycho-legal expertise at the Clinique Psychologique et Logopédique Universitaire (CPLU) of the University of Liege. In terms of teaching, Prof. Adélaïde Blavier holds courses in psycho-trauma, diagnostic tools and ethics and deontology. She is also in charge of three certificates (post-master training) on psycho-legal expertise, psycho-traumatology and management of problematic situations in schools. Her research focuses on psychological trauma and more specifically on risk and protective factors in the development of psychological trauma, on resilience processes and on the impact of dissociation on the evolution of trauma. She also works on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and on child abuse. In this context, she collaborates with the SOS Children teams and is notably vice-president of the Comité d'Accompagnement de l'Enfance Maltraitée (CAEM) at the ONE (Office de la Naissance et de l'Enfance).
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Edward Campforts

Edward Campforts, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist. He is the head of PAika, the child psychiatric service of the UZ Brussel and leads the residential treatment team for adolescents. He is a lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is a psychodynamic therapist with a special interest in attachment, especially during adolescence.
He has previously worked and lived together with street children in Ayacucho, Peru, an experience that gave not only an intimate understanding of the different ways children and adolescents developmentally respond to extreme trauma and attachment ruptures, but also a sense of hope, resilience and the possibility of interpersonal growth.
The past decade he has specialised in community based nonviolent resistance as both a philosophy and an intervention to stop the cycle of relational violence that so often coincides with complex trauma. He has taught this method to parents, school teams and different residential care teams. In the residential team of UZB, he integrates nonviolent resistance with trauma therapy to help relationally traumatized young people re-establish more trusting connections.
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Raphaël Gazon

Raphaël Gazon is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and trainer in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. With more than 20 years of clinical experience in various places including university, day care psychiatry, drug addiction unit, home consultation service and private practice, he provides individual and group therapy for patients with severe personality disorders and complex trauma. He has trained in various treatment modalities in the fields of psychological trauma and personality disorders. Raphaël is the director at the PEPS-E Center, a psychotherapy practice that specializes in the treatment of emotional disorders, psychic traumas and attachment disorders, and he has been president of the ESTD from 2020 to 2022. He is an experienced, international supervisor and lecturer in the fields of psychological trauma, attachment disorders, and borderline personality disorder.
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Thibaut Lorent

Thibaut Lorent is a clinical psychologist, criminologist and psychotherapist. His professional experience began in the field of humanitarian aid (project management, team management, crisis intervention, training) and continued for more than 10 years in the field of psychiatry (psychotherapy, interdisciplinary work). Vice-president of the AFTD (Association Francophone du Trauma et de la Dissociation) since 2019, he is specialised in the trauma clinic and is now a psychotherapist and trainer in de-escalation (management of agitated and violent patients) for care teams in the psychiatric hospital sector.
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Patrick Meurs

Patrick Meurs, PhD is a professor of psychology, an analytical child and adolescent psychotherapist, director of the Sigmund Freud Institute Frankfurt, head of the Psychoanalysis Department of the Institute of Erziehungswissenschaften at the University of Kassel, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences KU Leuven, lecturer at the Higher Institute of Family Sciences at Odisee University of Applied Sciences Brussels.

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Amélie Simon

Amelie Simon is a psychologist and psychotherapist who specialized in psychotraumatology and active hypnosis. After training hospital teams in psychotraumatology (CHC Liège, CH Brugmann) and university teaching and lecturing (UCL), she’s now Member of the AFTD Committee and of the university certificate for the Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology.
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Sophie Slovak

Sophie Slovak, MD, is a psychiatrist working with children, adolescents and families at the Douai Hospital in northern France. She’s interested in personality disorders and currently proposes Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents and their families. She’s in charge of a hospital unit specializing in the detection and evaluation of the effects of child abuse (SHEDD, Structure Hospitalière pour l’Enfance en Danger du Douaisis).

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Déborah Wisler

Deborah Wisler is a psychologist and psychotherapist in private practice in Lausanne, specialising in psychotrauma and CBT. She has been trained for more than ten years in the diagnosis and treatment of the after-effects of complex psychological trauma and more particularly dissociative disorders, and has developed and directed a specialised care programme in a large psychiatric institution in French-speaking Switzerland and has given several training courses focusing on complex trauma and dissociative disorders. She is a member of the committee of the AFTD (Association Francophone du Trauma et de la Dissociation) since 2020 and is author and co-author of articles in psychotraumatology.

Scientific Committee

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Adélaïde Blavier

Adélaïde Blavier is a doctor in psychology and professor at the University of Liège where she directs the Centre d'Expertise en Psycho-traumatisme et Psychologie Légale. In this context, she is responsible for the clinical consultation in psycho-traumatology and psycho-legal expertise at the Clinique Psychologique et Logopédique Universitaire (CPLU) of the University of Liege. In terms of teaching, Prof. Adélaïde Blavier holds courses in psycho-trauma, diagnostic tools and ethics and deontology. She is also in charge of three certificates (post-master training) on psycho-legal expertise, psycho-traumatology and management of problematic situations in schools. Her research focuses on psychological trauma and more specifically on risk and protective factors in the development of psychological trauma, on resilience processes and on the impact of dissociation on the evolution of trauma. She also works on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and on child abuse. In this context, she collaborates with the SOS Children teams and is notably vice-president of the Comité d'Accompagnement de l'Enfance Maltraitée (CAEM) at the ONE (Office de la Naissance et de l'Enfance).
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Manoëlle Hopchet

Manoëlle Hopchet is a Clinical psychologist, Trauma therapist (NtVP), Transference Focused Psychotherapist and Trainer/Supervisor. She is former president of the ESTD and actual president of the Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology. She has a private practice since more than 30 years in Brussels and has built special interest on the treatment on complex trauma/ dissociative disorders and personality disorders. She wrote and translated articles and books on trauma and dissociation.
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Ellen Kirstine Kjærulff Jepsen

Ellen Kirstine Kjærulff Jepsen, MD, PhD. is a psychiatrist at the Department for Trauma Treatment, Modum Bad Clinical Center, Norway, in connection to inpatient treatment of highly dissociative adult patients. In research, she has focus of treatment outcome of highly dissociative patients, and negative affective interference as mechanism of change. She is part of the consultant team in relation to the Treatment of Patients with Dissociative Disorders (TOPDD) Network Study.
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Renée Potgieter Marks

Renée Marks works as a Consultant Therapist and Clinical Lead at Integrate Families in the North of England. Integrate Families is the National Centre for Children with Complex Trauma and Dissociation. Renée is an inspirational and clinically skilled trainer (nationally and internationally) in the field of attachment, emotion regulation, complex trauma and dissociation in children and adolescents.
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Patrick Meurs

Patrick Meurs, PhD is a professor of psychology, an analytical child and adolescent psychotherapist, director of the Sigmund Freud Institute Frankfurt, head of the Psychoanalysis Department of the Institute of Erziehungswissenschaften at the University of Kassel, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences KU Leuven, lecturer at the Higher Institute of Family Sciences at Odisee University of Applied Sciences Brussels.
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Andrea Soubelet

Andrea Soubelet PhD, is a psychologist and psychotherapist, and also a lecturer and researcher at the University Cote d'Azur (UCA), where she teaches psychology of children and adolescents. Specialized in the field of prevention and treatment of the deleterious effects of psychotrauma in babies, children, and adolescents, she supervises doctoral theses in this field. She also coordinates a Master Degree of "Clinical Psychology, Vulnerabilities and Development of psychotrauma" at UCA. Since 2017, she has worked as a psychologist and as a psychotherapist at the Lenval hospital in Nice (child psychiatry), where she treats children and young adolescents struggling with psychotraumatic symptoms.
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Johan Vanderlinden

Johan Vanderlinden, PhD, is a psychologist and psychotherapist. He worked for more than 40 years as coordinator of the eating disorder program of the University Psychiatric Centre KULeuven, Belgium. He is currently a research fellow at the faculty of pedagogy and psychology of the KULeuven. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Geneva and still works in his private practice in Winksele, Belgium. Dr.Vanderlinden has done extensive scientific research on the treatment of clients with eating disorders with a special interest in the relationship between psychotrauma and eating disorders, which resulted in the publication of 15 books and 200 peer reviewed publications.
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Katrien Vanfraussen

Dr. Katrien Vanfraussen, PhD is a Clinical Psychologist, trauma therapist and EMDR-practitioner. Since 2006 she works at the Psychiatrische Afdeling voor infants, kinderen en adolescenten (PAika) of the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel). She is specialized in the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents who have experienced early childhood adversity and she has developed an expertise in working with foster and adoptive children and their families. Besides her clinical work, she also gives workshops and lectures where she makes a passionate plea for the integration of the body in trauma therapy.