Keynote speakers – ISPS international congress 2026

Luc Ciompi Emeritus Professor, Lausanne (CH)

Luc Ciompi

Keynote:

The enigma of schizophrenia in the long-term perspective

The author presents three different aspects of the long-term perspective of "the enigma of schizophrenia" : First the results of his own catamnestic research on the long-term evolution of a cohort of more than 200 former patients suffering form a schizophreniac psychosis over 3,6 decades in average. It showis (as a number of other studies worldwide) that schizophrenia may greately improve, in the long run, in about ¼ of the cases, and completely recover in another 1/4 of the cases, without valuable long-term predictors. Secomd, an integrative psycho--socio-biological understanding of schizophrenia is presented on the base of his own practical and therapeutic experiences over about nearly 7 decades, including more than 4 decades of experience with the psychotherpeutic and sociotherapeutic communitiy Soteria Berne. Third, some reflections on the historical perspective of madnes are presented. The conclusion is, that we still do not really know what "schizophrenia" is, why it sometimes becomes worse and sometimes improves and recovers, and whether it is really an "illness" in the conventional medical sense.

About Luc Ciompi:

Born in 1929 in Florence, Italy. Former director of the Sociopsychiatric University Cinic in Berne/Switzerland and co-chair of the Department of psychiatry at the University of Berne. Director of a vast research-program on the long-time evolution of different mental illnesses, esprcially schizophrenia. Author of the concept of affect-logic. Founder of the therapeutic community "Soteria Berne". Promoter of community based care-systems for rehabilitation and crisis intervention, based on an integrative psycho-socio-biological approach to mental illness.

Jacqui Dillon ISPS, London (UK)

Jacqui Dillon

Keynote:

From Surviving to Transforming: 25 Years of Radical Practice in Psychosis

Over the past 25 years, my work has evolved at the intersection of lived experience, activism, education, and therapeutic practice. Drawing from multiple frameworks—including the Hearing Voices Movement, trauma-informed care, relational approaches, the Power Threat Meaning Framework and therapeutic thinking—I have developed a radical, integrated approach that challenges dominant psychiatric narratives and shifts power back to those most affected.

This talk will explore the principles and practices that underpin this approach, showing how activism and education are not separate from therapeutic work but are themselves essential to healing. I will share how lived experience functions as both personal knowledge and political force, enabling a deeper understanding of psychosis as a meaningful human response rather than a biological malfunction.

About Jacqui Dillon:

Jacqui Dillon is an activist, author, educator and speaker, and has lectured and published worldwide on trauma, abuse, hearing voices, psychosis, dissociation, and healing. She is a key figure in the international Hearing Voices Movement, has co-edited three books, published numerous articles and papers and is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches. Jacqui is national Chair of ISPS UK, a board member of INTERVOICE, a board member of HVNI, Visiting Research Fellow at The Centre for Community Mental Health, Birmingham City University, a member of the Advisory Board at The Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care, St Catherine’s College, Oxford University, Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, a member of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Investigating Contemporary Social Ills at the University of Essex, Visiting Fellow at London Southbank University and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for PSI-STAR research programme, Ireland. Jacqui is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for creative, relational and trauma-informed approaches to madness and distress and is part of a collective movement demanding a radical shift in the way we understand and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. In 2017, Jacqui was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Psychology by the University of East London.
See www.jacquidillon.org

Oleksandr Filts Danylo Halytsky National Medical University, Lviv (UA)

Oleksandr Filts

Keynote:

Original War psychoses in Ukraine

This report presents a unique case of frontline psychosis characterized by an acute, short-lived psychotic episode with impaired consciousness and a severe suicide attempt. The patient attempted suicide by shooting himself in the lower jaw with an automatic rifle, directing the shot vertically upward. His history included several episodes of intense foreboding and perceived threat, accompanied by “inner voices.”
The patient survived, underwent multiple surgical interventions, and subsequently spent one month in a psychiatric ward. Two subsequent therapeutic and diagnostic interviews revealed intact cognitive functioning, preserved mental capacities, and a clear recognition of the inadequacy and incomprehensibility of the suicidal act.
Of particular interest is the rarely described phenomenon of “confused being,” in which the patient was unable to define his belonging either to the world of peace, the reality of war, or the environment of civilian home-front life.
The case will be examined from both phenomenological and psychodynamic perspectives, with particular attention to the subjective experience of psychosis, identity disruption, and the psychological impact of combat-related trauma.

About Oleksandr Filts:

Professor Filts completed his doctoral studies at the Institute of Clinical Psychiatry, Scientific Research Center of Mental Health, Academy of Medical Science of the USSR, Moscow. He served as Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Lviv National Medical University (1993–2005), Professor and Director of Lviv Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital (2005–2016), and since 2025 has been Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Lviv National Medical University.
He pursued post-doctoral studies at Ulm University, Germany (2002–2003), and conducted joint research on inpatient psychotherapy (2003–2015). Professor Filts founded the Ukrainian Umbrella Association of Psychotherapists (1996), led the “Truskavets, School of Ukrainian Psychotherapy” training program since 1994, and served as Honorary President of the European Association for Psychotherapy (2001–2003). He is Honorary Professor at Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, and the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, and President of the European Confederation of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychotherapies (ECPPP).

Dorothea von Haebler International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin (DE)

Dorothea von Haebler

Keynote:

TBA

About Dorothea von Haebler:

Dr. Dorothea von Haebler is a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as Professor for Interdisciplinary Psychosis Therapy at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin (IPU). She is leading the psychotherapy for psychosis research group at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charité Berlin. She is head of the psychoseambulanz.berlin, a cooperation between the out-patient department of IPU and the psychiatric university clinic of Charité at St. Hedwig hospital and also working as a psychodynamic psychotherapist for people with psychosis in group and individual psychotherapy. Dr. von Haebler is one of the principal investigators of the MPPS (modified psychodynamic psychotherapy for patients with schizophrenia) - a RCT efficacy study. She is one of the authors of the Manual „Psychodynamic Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia". Dorothea von Haebler is chair of the professional association Dachverband Deutschsprachiger PsychosenPsychotherapie DDPP e.V., (www.ddpp.eu) and therefore o the german group ISPS-DDPP. Her teaching, research and practice activities focus on the modified psychodynamic psychotherapy of people with psychosis in individual and group settings.

Courtenay Harding International Consultant - Integrated Health Outcomes, Yorktown (US)

Courtenay Harding

Keynote:

Suprise! People with psychoses can reclaim their lives.

For centuries, people suffering from extreme states of mind were expected to achieve marginal levels of functioning or a downward course. I, myself, thought this was the case, having worked as a nurse for a summer at Vermont's only state hospital. Then I stumbled upon a group of people from the same hospital who had received an unusual rehabilitation program 20 years prior. Ninety-seven percent (97%) of that original study cohort were found. The NIMH funded a follow-up longitudinal study. We found these people had been considered to be the most disabled in the hospital, including speaking animal gibberish, walking around nude, smearing feces on walls, and only modestly responding to Thorazine. This presentation focuses on the remarkable findings following these people for an average of 32 years from 1955 to 1987. Each person received a new DSM-III rediagnosis of original status in what is called "schizophrenia" and other psychotic categories by John Strauss, MD, and Alam Breier, MD at Yale. At follow-up, an average of 10 hours across 2 days was spent by experienced clinical investigators in subjects' kitchens using 15 scales and schedules during reassessment. Remarkably, 62-68% had significantly improved or fully recovered! Ten other contemporary studies of 2-3 decades from across the world (including here in Switzerland) found similar findings. The question is: "Why are there so many programs still thinking in terms of chronicity and inadvertently perpetuating it? Thank goodness for groups like ISPS who think differently and create programs promoting recovery!

About Courtenay Harding:

Professor Courtenay Harding was trained in psychological research at the University of Vermont and in clinical work at Yale with John Strauss, MD, the well-known schizophrenia researcher, working with William Carpenter, MD. While at Yale, she worked with Prof. Edward Zigler in psychology as a Bush Fellow in Public Policy. She became a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Associate Director of Public Psychiatry. In 2001, she moved to Boston as a Professor of Psychiatry and Senior Director of Bill Anthony's well-known BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. In 2009, instead of retiring, she became director of NYC's Center for Rehabilitation and Recovery at the Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies, serving 132 agencies and 350,000 people. At Columbia University, she participated in the Division of Mental Health Services and Policy Research. During her career, she received 47 awards and honors, presented 553 lectures across the world, co-authored a 2nd NIMH long-term study, The Maine-Vermont Comparison Study, which found rehabilitation made the difference in outcome, as well has published widely. In 2024, at age 84, Dr. Harding published a well-read book by Oxford University Press entitled "Recovery from Schizophrenia: Evidence, History, and Hope."

Jan Olav Johannessen University & University Hospital, Stavanger (NO)

Jan Olav Johannessen

Keynote:

Modern understanding of psychosis: from brain disease to stress disorder.

In this keynote I will summarise how we, in 2025, understand mental disorders in general, and psychosis in particular. During the last decade we have gained new insights into these disorders, and most textbooks are outdated and convey an old-fashioned understanding of the causes, the possible courses and the treatments needed for serious mental suffering. I will give an overview over the crucial importance of intervening early in these disorders, hopefully in the prepsychotic phases. Finally, I will outline an ideal organisation of "a psychosis early detection and treatment system".

About Jan Olav Johannessen:

Jan Olav Johannessen is a Norwegian professor of psychiatry, affiliated with Stavanger University Hospital/University of Stavanger. Previous Chair of ISPS international for two terms (2001-2006 and 2015-2019) and Initiator of the TIPS-project (Early intervention in psychosis). Former president of the Norwegian Psychiatric Association. A trained psychotherapist, at present working as a clinical psychotherapist for young people with first-episode psychosis, supervisor, researcher and educator.

Nev Jones School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh (US)

Nev Jones

Keynote:

Coercion and Poverty in the Context of Psychosis: Current Landscape and a Call for Radical Change

This presentation will focus on the realities and harms of poverty and coercion in the context of psychosis and recommendations for radical change. Drawing on the abolitionist concept of "non-reformist reform" the presenter will describe underlying structural drivers and then present a vision for change that, in the words of Amna Akbar "aim[s] to undermine the prevailing political, economic, social order, construct an essentially different one, and build democratic power toward emancipatory horizons."

About Nev Jones:

Nev Jones PhD is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh and award-winning mental health services research focused on the phenomenology and sociostructural determinants of psychosis and associated clinical and social welfare services and supports. Dr. Jones has long-championed robust participatory approaches, and her work in grounded in extended personal and family experience of psychosis.

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James Kirkbride University College London (UK)

James Kirkbride

Keynote:

Rediscovering lost horizons: charting a course for social equity in psychosis risk

In this keynote, I revisit the “lost horizons” of psychiatric epidemiology to argue that psychosis risk is deeply rooted in social determinants. From early work mapping incidence patterns to recent global evidence, I show how systemic inequities—poverty, childhood adversity, discrimination and social exclusion—shape vulnerability to psychotic disorders. Today, despite growing recognition of the effectiveness of early intervention, only around 30% of people with psychosis make a full recovery. In this talk, I will argue that identifying and intervening on the upstream social determinants of psychosis to prevent disorder before it begins should be central to population mental health, yet primary prevention remains underfunded. For psychosis, the evidence is clear: socioeconomic disadvantage, ethnic disparities, and psychosocial disempowerment significantly elevate risk. I advocate for a shift toward primary prevention, targeting modifiable social factors such as poverty alleviation, parenting support, and social cohesion. Drawing on Geoffrey Rose’s work in preventive medicine, I outline directions for action to alleviate unequal risk of experiencing psychosis between and within populations.

About James Kirkbride:

James B. Kirkbride is Professor of Psychiatric and Social Epidemiology in the Division of Psychiatry, UCL, where he directs the PsyLife research group (www.psylife.eu) to investigate the social determinants of severe mental illnesses. His research focuses on the social determinants of psychosis at multiple levels of causation. In particular, he investigates why several migrant and minoritised ethnic groups experience elevated rates of psychosis, and why rates are elevated in more adverse, urban environments.

He addresses these inequalities by applying epidemiological techniques to various datasets, including large epidemiological studies of first episode psychosis and longitudinal cohort data. He currently co-leads a major national initiative in the UK to implement a psychosis registry and clinical decision support system in NHS Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services, called EPICare.

Professor Kirkbride is a previous recipient of the APPA Robins-Guze prize (2013) and has held several prestigious grants and fellowships from the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council and UKRI. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2007.

Pat McGorry Orygen, Parkville (AU)

Pat McGorry

Keynote:

The future for the care of people with psychosis.

People who develop a psychotic illness, and particularly the subgroup who meet the criteria for schizophrenia, have been severely neglected throughout the history of healthcare.

What began as a well-meaning movement to offer shelter and care to people with serious mental illness in the late 18th century and early 19th century developed into the Asylum movement, where people were warehoused in large institutions. These were custodial and became total institutions, places where a lot of iatrogenic harm and disability was inflicted and manufactured.

My initial training was within this system of care, which by that time had deteriorated in quality, and contrasted starkly with the quality of care provided in the rest of the health system for people with physical illness.
This was despite the advent of effective new drug therapies for treating psychosis, and an emerging range of psychosocial interventions to reduce the psychological impact of the illness, and even to treat some of the core symptoms.

The decline of this 19th-century model of care, associated with the deinstitutionalization movement, appeared at the time to be a very progressive step. Sadly, the models of care developed to replace this old-fashioned way of managing mental illness were very narrow in focus and merely covered the basics of clinical care, mostly at the acute end. Provision for the social needs of the patient, for shelter, a healthy diet, a vocational pathway, and connection and social connection with the rest of the community, was overlooked, and as a result, the experiences of the patients, in many ways, remained adverse. Their functional and personal outcomes certainly did not improve to the extent that it is possible with modern knowledge. The care of the severely mentally ill, particularly psychosis languished.

Despite the discovery of effective drug therapies, which benefited at least two-thirds of those suffering from schizophrenia and psychosis, these medications were often used crudely and inexpertly. And despite the development of sophisticated psychological and social therapies aimed at more complete and holistic recovery, these interventions were not mandated or required within mainstream mental health services. The pharmaceutical industry, which had benefited for many years from the discovery of newer forms of antipsychotic, basically abandoned that vital scientific task some 20 or so years ago.

The field itself remains immature and has failed to integrate, in a non-ideological and non-reductionistic way, the various forms of proven effective treatment to help people with psychosis recover. False dichotomies between biological and psychosocial, between early-stage patients and late-stage patients, and between child-focused approaches and adult-focused approaches in mental health care continue to plague us. Systems of care continue to deliver iatrogenic harm, and the lack of resourcing for dedicated clinicians working in these systems means that they are faced with moral injury in their everyday work. This results from not being equipped to provide much-needed evidence-based care and support for the social determinants impacting their patients. Now is the time to overcome these divisions and the tenacious neglect by society and policy makers, and for humanitarians, clinicians and researchers to advocate much more effectively on behalf of millions of people around the world who desperately need a fair deal within modern systems of health and social care.

About Pat McGorry:

Professor Patrick McGorry is an Irish-born, Australian psychiatrist known world-wide for his development and scaling up of early intervention and youth mental health services, and for mental hCCCCealth innovation, advocacy and reform. He is Executive Director of Orygen, Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and founding editor of the journal “Early Intervention in Psychiatry”. He led the advocacy which resulted in the establishment, by the Australian government in 2005, of the National Youth Mental Health Foundation, which in 2006 became Headspace, and he remains the Patron of that organisation. Professor McGorry has published over 1052 publications, with 70,197 citations and a “h” index of 135 (Scopus). He has played a key advocacy and advisory role to government and health system reform in Australia and in many parts of the world. 

He is Immediate Past President of the International Association for Youth Mental Health, Past-President of the Schizophrenia International Research Society, Past-president of the Society for Mental Health Research and was Founding President and is now Treasurer of the IEPA: Early Intervention in Mental Health. He is also a Founding Board Member of Australians for Mental Health.

In 2010 Professor McGorry was selected as Australian of the Year and became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). In 2013 he received the Annual Research Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Washington DC, and in 2015 was awarded the Lieber Prize for Schizophrenia Research by the US-based Brain and Behaviour Foundation. In 2016 he became the first psychiatrist to be elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In 2018 he received the Schizophrenia International Research Society Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019 the Humanitarian Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and the NHMRC Research Excellence Award. In 2024 he was admitted as a Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

John Read University of East London (UK)

John Read

Keynote:

The psycho-social causes of psychosis: Thirty years of research

The presentation will map thirty years of research into the relationship between adversities (including poverty, abuse, neglect, racism etc) and psychosis, in the context of the dominance of a simplistic, pessimistic biological model of madness.

READ, J. (1997). Child abuse and psychosis: A literature review and implications for professional practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 28, 448-456.

READ, J., van OS, J., MORRISON, A., ROSS, C. (2005). Childhood trauma, psychosis and schizophrenia: A literature review with theoretical and clinical implications. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 112, 330-350.

READ, J. (2010). Can poverty drive you mad? “Schizophrenia”, socio-economic status and the case for primary prevention. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 39, 7-19.

BEAVAN, V, READ, J. CARTWRIGHT, C. (2011). The prevalence of voice-hearing in the general population: A literature review. Journal of Mental Health, 20, 282-292.

READ, J., WILLIAMS, J. (2019). Positive and negative effects of antipsychotic medication: an international online survey of 832 recipients. Current Drug Safety, 14, 173-181.

READ, J. (2025). How important are informed consent, informed choice, and patient-doctor relationships, when prescribing antipsychotic medication? Journal of Mental Health, 34, 4-12.

About John Read:

Dr John Read is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London. He has published over 200 research papers, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events and psychosis; the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice; anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medication; electroconvulsive therapy; and the toxic influence of the pharmaceutical industry on clinical research and practice.

John is Chair of the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal [https://iipdw.org] and on the Board of Hearing Voices Network, England [http://www.hearing-voices.org]

He served on the Board of ISPS for many years and was made an Honorary Lifetime Member of ISPS in 2022.

In the same year he was included in the Stanford University list of the top 2% of the most cited scientists in the world.

He is the founding editor of the ISPS scientific journal ‘Psychosis’ and the editor/author of several books, including:
Read J, Sanders P. (2022) ‘A straight talking introduction to the causes of mental health problems’, PCCS Books.
Read J, Dillon J. (eds) (2013) ‘Models of Madness’, Routledge.

Dag Söderström Co-Congress Chair of ISPS international congress 2026, Lausanne (CH)

Dag Söderström

Keynote:

Why so much resistance to psychotherapy for psychosis ?

Why is there still strong resistance to psychotherapy for psychosis, even though it's proven effective? This resistance goes against clear clinical evidence and successful outcomes.
These barriers suggest more than just hesitation; they indicate systematic resistance within our healthcare system. The presentation will try to explore the psychological, social, and political factors that maintain this resistance.
The interaction between trauma and psychosis might partly explain this resistance and offer ways to address it. Anti-trauma interventions at different stages can help reduce barriers to psychotherapy in various treatment situations.
Additionally, the positive changes from psychotherapy for psychosis are often underestimated. The most significant outcome is a new sense of self, described as internal joy and feeling alive.
The presentation will include testimonies from lived experiences, offering hope to overcome the resistance to psychotherapy for psychosis.

About Dag Söderström:

Dag is a Swiss Medical Association psychiatrist and psychotherapist, an IPA psychoanalyst and Board Executive member of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis.
Born in Sweden, he came with his family at 6 years old to Switzerland, studied medical school at the University Lausanne. Doctorate University Lausanne 1988. Title of Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist FMH Switzerland.
He has worked as clinician and family therapist in public sector during which 3 years in a day Center incorporating singing in therapeutic groups.
Leader of psychiatric hospital and region in Switzerland during more than 15 years.
Co-researcher in “City and Psychosis”, 8 years founded research by Swiss National Fund, Neuchâtel and Lausanne University, with Pr Philippe Conus and Pr Ola Söderström (20.

Current activities :
Supervisor at the University of Lausanne
Teaching CAS MAS courses on psychoanalysis and transference, CAS on psychosomatics, and as co-founder in a new course called “Psychotherapeutic approach to psychosis” at University of Lausanne
Balint supervisor
Private practice as psychoanalyst

Co-published several papers on the research City and Psychosis, last in Schizophrenia research. As author in French journals (l’infopsy, Psychothérapies,..)

Together with Philippe Conus, he will publish a reference work entitled Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Psychosis, Routledge, London (2025-6).

Already published in french 2021, RMS editions Geneva
Author of On psychotic anxiety, an end-of-the world anxiety, RMS editions, Geneva (2025), in french, to be translated 2025.

Erik Thys Universitair Psychiatrisch Centrum KU, Leuven (BE)

Erik Thys

Keynote:

Art, community and psychosis

Art and psychosis are connected in many ways. People with vulnerability to psychosis tend to be more creative, and vice versa; making and experiencing art is healing for everyone, with or without psychosis; and art can be seen as a safe space where societal conventions are less stringent, a prerequisite for creativity. The lecture will explore the interaction between art, community, and psychosis from a scientific and experiential point of view.

About Erik Thys:

Erik Thys works as a psychiatrist in UPC KU Leuven and PSC Elsene, researches the links between psychosis, creativity and stigma and founded KAOS, a non-profit organization at the intersection of art and psychiatry, including an artist residency in psychiatry.