Keynote speakers

Lynne Angus Ph.D., C.Psych. is Professor Emerita, and Senior Scholar of Psychology, Faculty of Health at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Lynne practices, supervises and conducts psychotherapy research addressing the contributions of narrative and emotion processes for clinically significant change, in a range of evidence-based therapy approaches. Over the past 25 years, Lynne has published over 100 publications addressing the unique contributions of metaphor, narrative, emotion and meaning making processes to productive client change, and co-developed the Narrative- Emotion Process Coding System (Angus et al 2017) that has been used to investigate Emotion-focussed Therapy, Time Limited Dynamic Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Motivational Interviewing in treatments of Anxiety, Complex Trauma and Depression. Clinical implications of her research program for effective therapy practice have been addressed in the Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy (Angus & McLeod, 2004); Working with Narrative in Emotion-focussed Therapy: Changing stories, healing lives’ (Angus & Greenberg 2011), Narrative Process in Emotion-focussed Therapy for Trauma (Paivio & Angus 2017 ), and two APA Therapy videos (Angus & Paivio, 2015; Angus 2012) as well as numerous International training workshops (Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, USA).

Dr. Christin Camia received her education, Diploma and PhD in Psychology, from the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. After completing her PhD degree, she worked as postdoctoral researcher at New York University Abu Dhabi and has then been appointed Assistant Professor of Psychology in Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on the role of autobiographical memory and the life story for identity. More specifically, she investigates the cognitive and narrative processes, which people employ to remember their past and to derive insights in their own personality and identity development throughout the life span. Furthermore, she is interested in the interchange of personal identity and social context.

Tilmann Habermas is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst presently teaching at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin, after having taught at Goethe University Frankfurt. His work on narrative focusses on life narratives, emotion narratives, and the role of narrative in psychotherapy. His latest book is Emotion and Narrative.

Kate C. McLean is a Professor of Psychology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.  Her research centers on narrative identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood.  Her recent work emphasizes the social and cultural contexts of narrative identity development, as well as the relation between identity processes and personality and well-being.  She is the author of The Co-Authored Self: Family Stories and Construction of Personal Identity.  She is an Associate Editor for the Journal Personality and Social Psychology: PPID, and on the Editorial Board or Emerging Adulthood and Qualitative Psychology. She is co-Editor (with Moin Syed) of the Oxford Handbook of Identity Development, and the editor of Cultural Methods in Psychology: Describing and Transforming Cultures.  She is the recent recipient of the 2022 Henry A. Murray Award.

Dorthe Kirkegaard Thomsen is a professor in psychology at Aarhus University, Denmark where she also holds a position as vice chair and head of the PhD committee. She is a well-known scholar in narrative identity and has authored more than 60 scientific papers as well as a recent book entitled “storying mental illness and personal recovery”