Dr Hogstrom and Dr Vigerland (see below) are going to deliver a training course on CBT for anxiety problems among children and adolescents. The training is a joint force between Sumud Palestine, the Palestinian Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (PABCT) and Al Quds University. The training will take place at Abu Dies village near Jerusalem to allow Palestinian mental health professionals to meet in the middle of the West Bank. The training will start on the 11th and end on the 13th of May. The participants will receive certificates from Karolinska Institute for Psychiatric Research and studies and Sumud Palestine. Sumud sponsors the travel and accommodation costs for the trainers from Sweden.
The Palestinian Association is now a formal member of the European Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies after it was voted unanimously last August in it’s AGM meeting in Stockholm. Sumud sponsored Mohammed Mukhaimar, Dr Muna Hmeed and Farah Darwaza to attend on behalf of the association. In a recent development, the Palestinian Association has been invited to be part of the organising and scientific committees of the 9th World Congress for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies that will take place in Barlin in 2019.
Jens Högström
Jens Högström, PhD, is a clinical psychologist at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Stockholm, and a postdoc at the Centre for Psychiatry Research, Karolinska Institute (KI). He is part of a research group that specializes in evidence-based psychological treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. Dr Högström has developed and evaluated cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) interventions for social anxiety disorder as well as for conduct problems and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He is also a lecturer on several of the clincal courses at the KI psychologist training program, a supervisor of PhD candidates as well as of ongoing and past master’s theses, and has ongoing collaborations with other research groups, locally (Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at KI) and internationally (e.g., Mental Health Services in Oslo (Norway), Mayo clinic (US), and King’s College London (UK)).
Sarah Vigerland
Sarah Vigerland, PhD, also works as a clinical psychologist at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Stockholm, and a postdoc at the Centre for Psychiatry Research, Karolinska Institute (KI). Her research has mainly focused on internet-delivered CBT (ICBT) for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders. She has also been involved in developing and evaluating CBT for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and functional gastrointestinal disorders and is involved in several projects and collaborations focusing on dissemination. Sarah has also worked for the National Board och Health and Welfare with the Swedish National Guidelines on treatment of pediatric anxiety and PTSD, and is currently working on updating the regional guidelines for pediatric anxiety in Stockholm. Sarah also supervises PhD candidates and master students.