Professor Jenny Slatman - 09:45 - 10:30, Thursday January 25th
Jenny Slatman is Professor Medical Humanities in the department of Culture
Studies at Tilburg University. Slatman has a background in physiotherapy and
philosophical anthropology. She has published widely on issues of embodiment in
art, expression and contemporary medical practices. Her publications include a
book-length philosophical study on the meaning of expression in the work of the
French philosopher Merleau-Ponty: L’expression au-delà de la représentation. Sur l’aisthêsis et l’esthétique
chez Merleau-Ponty
(Paris, 2003), and the monograph Our Strange Body: Philosophical Reflections
on Identity and Medical Interventions (Amsterdam-Chicago, 2014). In 2010, Slatman was awarded a
NWO-Vidi grant for her research project on Bodily Integrity in Blemished
Bodies. In this project, Slatman and her team explored the meaning of
bodily identity and bodily integrity in disfiguring head, neck and breast
cancer. In 2017 Slatman was awarded a NWO-Vici grant for her research project Mind
the Body: Rethinking embodiment in healthcare. This project will focus on
the meaning of embodiment in health practices pertaining to MUPS (medically
unexplained physical symptoms), obesity, and depression, while exploring how
health professionals, patients and the wide audience talk about and deal with
body-mind issues www.jennyslatman.nl; www.mindthebody.eu
Abstract:
Title: Beyond Body & Mind? MUPS from a
philosophical-anthropological perspective
Summary: As is well known, in modern western health and
medicine, disease is understood as something that can be located in the body.
According to this view, which is dominant since the 18th century, disease
implies a defect at some place in the body. Diagnostic tools of somatic
problems therefore aim at tracing deviating values of measurable physical
features. We all know, however, that many physical health problems cannot be
traced back to such features. For the sake of convenience, these problems are
nowadays labeled as “medically unexplained physical symptoms” (MUPS). Some
believe that these problems are only temporarily unexplained, that we might
find an explanation in the future with new diagnostic tools, others may believe
that people suffering from these kinds of problems in fact suffer from some
mental disorder. Whereas the first
conviction might lead to the search for new somatic diagnostics and treatment,
the second might lead to forms of therapy that aim at boosting mental
capacities. In my talk, I will not discuss which of these approaches is
clinically most effective. Rather, as a philosophical anthropologist, I am more
concerned with the underlying logics of both convictions. Both convictions
start from the same dualistic presupposition, i.e. they both start from the
idea that human beings have a body (soma) and a mind (psyche). In my talk, I
would like to show why such a dualistic view on humans is problematic.
Subsequently I will introduce an alternative view on the body and on
embodiment, which might help us to consider the problem of MUPS from a new
perspective.
Professor
Wolfgang Linden - 16:30 - 17:15, Thursday January 25th
Professor
Wolfgang Linden is an expert in psychological factors in mental health
and rehabilitation. He is Full Professor in of Clinical and Health Psychology
in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada. Professor Linden is a true scientist-practitioner who has
conducted clinical and experimental research on mechanisms of disease in the
areas of health behaviors, treatment of hypertension, cardiac rehabilitation,
and cancer care. He is well recognized for his scholarly systematic reviews and
meta analyses as well as innovative clinical trials.
Abstract:
Title: Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer in Women and Men: ‘Same same’?
Summary: This keynote address provides a review of the roles that sex and gender play in the clinical management of cardiovascular disease and cancer from a biopsychosocial perspective. This summary and perspective reflects a lifetime worth of clinical experience, controlled experimental research and clinical trials from Professor Linden. The multiple parallels between health psychology- and behavioral medicine-based approaches to research and interventions are discussed. The keynote address will sensitize the audience to the important subtleties in these cross-cutting issues and help to provide more efficient approaches to understanding disease processes and optimizing clinical care.
Professor Christine Heim - 15:45 - 16:30, Friday January 26th
Professor
Christine Heim is the Director of the Institute of Medical Psychology at
Charité. She is also a Member of the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure at Charité
in Berlin as well as Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State
University. Her research focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms
that underlie the link between childhood trauma and increased risk for
developing a range of psychiatric and medical disorders across the lifespan.
With this research, she hopes to derive novel pathophysiology-driven targets
for the prevention and intervention of disorders related to early-life stress.
She is the recipient of multiple federal grants and foundation grants, and she
serves on national and international scientific review committees regarding
research on consequences of childhood trauma.
Abstract:
Title: Understanding and Mitigating the Impact of Early-Life Adversity on Disease Risk: Towards Developmental Programming of Lifelong Health
Summary: Adversity in early life, such as childhood abuse, neglect and loss experiences, is a well-established major risk factor for developing a range of psychiatric and medical disorders later in life. Understanding mechanisms and trajectories of biological embedding of early-life adversity, and their moderation by gene-environment interaction, is critical to design novel interventions that directly reverse these processes and to derive biological measures that identify children who are at risk of developing disorders or are susceptible to a specific intervention. Such advances will promote personalized care based on risk profiles and will inform targeted interventions to mitigate the adverse outcomes of early-life stress and promote lifelong health.