#ESTSS2025
18th biennial conference of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
Exploring New Approaches for Healing and Recovery in Times of Global Uncertainty
and Extreme Stress
Keynote Speakers
Professor Jana D. Javakhishvili
Ilia State University, Georgia
Talk Title
Navigating Traumatic Stress: Seeking a Framework to Embrace Intrapsychic, Interpersonal, and Sociopolitical Dimensions
The public health and geopolitical challenges of recent years call for a reconsideration of certain key premises of contemporary psychotraumatology. This presentation will explore trauma related to mass violence and its intergenerational effects within the context of the contemporary postmodern world. The role of traumatic stress professionals at different stages of mass violence and some models of intervention at these stages will be discussed. The interaction between intrapsychic, interpersonal, and sociopolitical factors will be highlighted. Experiences of running innovative trauma-informed and trauma-focused services, both digital and in-person, in situations of ongoing armed conflict and political oppression will be shared. Concrete vignettes will illustrate these experiences. Some data from the corresponding service evaluation studies will also be presented. Finally, a comprehensive model of responses to mass trauma, integrating intrapsychic, interpersonal, and political dimensions, will be proposed.
Biography
Jana D. Javakhishvili, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute of Addiction Studies at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. Her research interests primarily focus on exploring the mental health problems of populations affected by armed conflicts and political oppression. She is heavily engaged in the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry projects focused on improving human rights-based mental health care in various countries including Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. She is the Past President (2019-2020) of ESTSS. Since November 2022, she has been serving on the Board of Directors of ISTSS. Additionally, she serves as a trustee of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, Europe, and leads an Armed Conflict Thematic Group within the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress. She serves on the editorial boards of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT), and the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation (JTD).
Professor Jonathan I. Bisson
Cardiff University, UK
Talk Title
The Development, Evaluation and Dissemination of Guided Digital Interventions to Treat People Affected by Traumatic events
The limited number of suitably trained therapists to deliver trauma-focused psychological treatments often precludes timely access to treatment for PTSD and Complex PTSD. Treatment is typically delivered weekly, face to face over several months, which also makes it difficult to access for some recipients (e.g., because of stigma, work commitments, travel, and the need for childcare). Guided self-help combines the use of self-help materials with regular guidance from a trained professional and requires less time with a therapist.
Cardiff University’s Traumatic Stress Research Group developed a guided digital self-help programme called Spring using qualitative and quantitative research methods and then evaluated it through feasibility and pragmatic effectiveness randomised controlled trials. This work demonstrated that Spring was non-inferior to face-to-face CBT- TF and offered a more cost-efficient way to treat people with PTSD. The presentation will describe the development, evaluation, dissemination and implementation of Spring in different settings and conclude with an overview of the development of a sibling intervention for complex PTSD.
Biography
Jonathan is a practising psychiatrist and Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Cardiff University. He is also Director of Traumatic Stress Wales, a national initiative to improve the health and wellbeing of people affected by traumatic events in Wales. In addition, Jonathan is Deputy Director of the National Centre for Mental Health and lead its intervention development workstream.
He has conducted many research studies including seven randomised controlled trials and five Cochrane systematic reviews that have shaped research and practice in the traumatic stress field. He is also co-chair of the UK’s first PTSD NICE Guideline Development Group and chaired the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies’ Treatment Guidelines Committee.
Jonathan developed and continue to lead Cardiff University’s Traumatic Stress Research Group. The research currently focuses on the development, evaluation and dissemination of guided digital self-help interventions for PTSD, CPTSD and prolonged grief disorder.
Isaac Galatzer-Levy
Google
Talk Title
From Heterogeneity to Personalization: Computational Methods, AI, and the Future of Scalable, Personalized Digital Interventions
The PTSD diagnosis encompasses highly heterogeneous presentations. To address this, my research has employed computational methods to identify patterns in the course, causes, and modifiers of responses to potential trauma. I will present over a decade of findings that map individual differences, revealing common trajectories, high-dimensional predictors, and common biological pathways. I will discuss how my research has utilized computational methods to harness this heterogeneity to make predictions and target personalize interventions. I will discuss emerging generative AI approaches that can build on this research to provide interventions that adapt to highly personalized needs, potentially solving key challenges in the identification highly personalized needs following potentially traumatic events.
Biography
Isaac Galatzer-Levy is a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google, leading research on using sensors, algorithms, and AI for psychological applications, such as measurement and health agent development. As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, his research focuses on applying machine learning to predict and characterize traumatic stress responses using multimodal signals, including epigenetics and video.
Dr. Galatzer-Levy has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Nature Medicine, JAMA Psychiatry, Daedalus, Annual Review of Psychology, and Psychological Science. He holds patents for mental health measurement and delivery technologies. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University under the mentorship of George Bonanno and completed postdoctoral training at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, mentored by Charles Marmar, Arieh Shalev, and Joseph LeDoux.