Renowned psychiatrist and epidemiologist Jim van Os will offer a seminar on mental disorders entitled "Una nueva comprensión de las causas y el abordaje de los trastornos mentales: poniendo a la persona, la sociedad y la complejidad en el centro de la investigación" [A New Look on the Causes and Approaches on Mental Disorders: putting people, society and complexity at the centre of research] on Wednesday 11 October, from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the conference hall of the Faculty of Sociology. The seminar is open to the general public and forms part of the UAB's year on mental health.
The seminar is organised by the PhD programme in Clinical and Health Psychology, which is coordinated by the Person-Environment Interaction in Mental Health research group, led by Neus Vidal Barrantes, professor at the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the UAB.
Professor Jim van Os is considered one of the most relevant figures in the critique of the medical domain of mental health management and promotes putting the person at the centre as an active agent who is co-responsible for their treatment. Among a wide range of topics, his research covers the redefinition of mental disorders, the causal role of macro-social and everyday contextual factors in health, and how these interact with genetic and psychological variability in a wide variety of mental disorders.
Since 2009 van Os has challenged public perceptions of schizophrenia through his teaching positions at some of the world's top universities, including Maastricht University Medical School, Utrecht University, and King's College London. His publications, with critical reflections on the application of the classical medical diagnostic system to mental health and its harmful social and health consequences, have been the subject of much controversy in the highest international scientific forums.
Throughout his professional career, Jim van Os has been a courageous advocate for a radical transformation in mental health. He has been a pioneer in denouncing the collapse and necessary reconstruction of the public mental health system almost 15 years ago, a denunciation that began in the Netherlands and spread internationally. His fight for public resources to prevent and intervene early in mental disorders is supported by a broad scientific evidence base. In addition, he has promoted a new approach known as "the psychosis spectrum", which recognises a very broad spectrum ranging from experiences that are common in people without any diagnosis to occasional symptoms, less severe disorders, and in a smaller proportion than assumed in this broad set, chronic forms such as schizophrenia and paranoia.
In 2014 he was recognised as being one of the "most influential scientific minds of our time". He is co-author of more than 800 publications in journals such as Nature, Lancet and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), among others.
