Joop de Jong

Joop de Jong

Joop de Jong, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Psychiatry and Global Mental Health at Amsterdam UMC, Adjunct Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, and Emeritus Visiting Professor of Psychology at Rhodes University, South Africa. He was the founder and director of the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO), which provided mental health and psychosocial services, especially in post-war and post-disaster areas, in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Joop de Jong worked part-time as a psychotherapist and psychiatrist with immigrants and refugees in the Netherlands. He has been integrating insights from public and global mental health, psychotherapy, psychiatry, anthropology and epidemiology in community interventions, on which he co-authored 335 papers, chapters and books.

 

 

 

Joop de Jonge

Title of keynote:

'New developments in psychosocial care in humanitarian emergencies'

KEYNOTE ABSTRACT
The past fifteen years showed a proliferation of scientific evidence for Common Mental Disorders in emergencies, especially for adults. Research also got much more sophisticated, e.g. by combining indigenous and international constructs in outcome research. Or by using a precision psychology paradigm, looking both at clinical data and at the social determinants of mental health. Or by linking research with the Sustainable Development Goals. Parallel to the increase of evidence, there was an increase in intervention tools and packages. For example, the mhGAP Humanitarian or the UN Minimal Service Package. Cultural adaptation also became an important issue. Both in scientifically testing interventions, but also in training, supervision and mentoring projects and programs. Another highly relevant development focussed on how to implement evidenced based interventions in local contexts. Realizing that in public mental health small changes for many maybe more relevant than big changes for a few. Engaging and mobilizing the local community and develop local partnerships. And scaling up. This resulted in more interest in implementation science and theory of change. Finally, this talk will mention several challenges in terms of research and implementation for the coming years.