1st European DBT Congress 2025

Julieta Azevedo holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Coimbra, where she also completed her master's degree in Cognitive-Behavioural qInterventions in Psychological and Health Disorders. Currently, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and serves as an honorary assistant researcher at Bangor University. Dr. Azevedo has an impressive publication record, including several articles in international journals, six book chapters, and one book. Her work has been recognised with seven awards and honours, and she has actively contributed to various research projects in the fields of Psychology and Medical and Health Sciences.

In addition to her research, Dr. Azevedo is a member of the scientific committee of the World DBT Association and has been involved in multiple research intervention projects, particularly focusing on individuals with psychosis, bipolar disorder, and perinatal depression. Her research interests are centred on Borderline Personality Disorder, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness, Perinatal Mental Health, Bipolar Disorder, and Mood Disorders, among other related areas.

Martin Bohus received his M.D. at Freiburg Medical School and did his residency in Psychiatry and Neurology at Freiburg Medical School. He made his specialty in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine. From 2003 to 2021, he held the Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy chair at Heidelberg University and was Medical Director at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim. He received several awards for psychotherapy research. He was a board member of the German Association of Psychiatry DGPPN, president of the European Society for the Studies of Personality Disorders (ESSPD), vice-president of the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD), president of the German Association for DBT. He was president and initiator of the 1st International Congress on Borderline Personality Disorder, Berlin 2010. He was the spokesperson for the Clinical Research Unit and center grant, “Mechanisms of Disturbed Emotion Processing in BPD.” He was a founding board member of the World DBT Association (WDBTA) and is the current president of the European DBT Association (EDBTA). Martin Bohus has developed and evaluated DBT-PTSD, the first evidence-based treatment for complex PTSD. He has currently published more than 480 articles and book chapters, mainly on mechanisms of psychotherapy, borderline personality disorders, and complex PTSD. He is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the journal Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation (BPDED.)

Ausiàs Cebolla is a professor of psychology at the University of Valencia, and a member of the I-Psi-Tec lab (www.ipsitec.com). He completed his Ph.D. in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy applied to anxiety and depression, and since then, he has dedicated his research to understanding the mechanisms through which mindfulness practice and other contemplative practices are effective. He is particularly interested in the transdiagnostic dimensions of mindfulness practice. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles and book chapters on the effectiveness of meditation-based interventions, the mechanisms of mindfulness efficacy, and the impact of meditation on psychological well-being.

Alan E. Fruzzetti, PhD, is a Research Fellow at the National Suicide Research Foundation/ University College Cork, Lead for supervision & implementation for the HSE DBT Team, on the faculty at Harvard Medical School (now part-time), and professor emeritus at the University of Nevada-Reno. Alan is a co-founder of the Center for DBT and Families, the Center for Trauma and Stress Education, and the World DBT Association, a past-president of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA-BPD) and on the board of directors of the DBT Board of Certification. He has developed dialectical behavior therapy applications for parents, couples and families and other successful DBT programs for people with suicidality, borderline personality disorder and other problems with emotion regulation, victims of aggression and violence, and the free NEA-BPD Family Connections program for family members. His research focuses on the connections between emotion dysregulation and interpersonal or family processes and the development and evaluation of interventions to help both individuals and relationships. He has authored more than 130 research and clinical papers and book chapters, two books, testified to Congressional committees, and has lectured and trained professionals and the public in more than two dozen countries on BPD, DBT, suicidality, stress and trauma, and DBT family interventions. He received his AB from Brown University and MS and PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Professor Lars Mehlum MD PhD is the founding director of the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Oslo, Norway. He received his MD degree at the University of Bergen and his PhD at the University of Oslo. He is a board specialist in psychiatry and he has been professor of psychiatry and suicidology at the University of Oslo since 1999. The past president of the IASP, IASR, ESSPD and N-DBT and board member of many organizations he has been involved in international scientific and implementation work through several decades and consulting with governments on suicide preventive strategies in a high number of countries throughout the world. He founded the Norwegian DBT association and has helped founding several other national and international organizations. His research focuses on clinical and epidemiological aspects of suicidal and self-harming behaviour and development and scientific evaluation of interventions. He has a strong interest in developing treatments for people with borderline personality disorder and he has conducted several randomized psychotherapy trials for young people, among them the first RCT on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy adapted for adolescents. He has authored more than 400 papers and book chapters and edited 10 text books. He is the founding editor of the journal Suicidologi and he is member of the editorial board of several other journals. He has received several national and international awards.

Magdalena Skuza, MA, psychologist, sociologist, certified psychotherapist and supervisor-director of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT). Since 2020 she is part of the international training team of the Center for DBT and Families, USA, directed by Prof. Alan Fruzzetti. She co-directs the HarmonJa Mental Health Centre in Gdansk, Poland, where she provides individual therapy and DBT skills training, as well as Family Connections training for families. She has worked at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University Hospital in Krakow and at the Child and Adolescent Department of the WSP in Gdansk. She provides training and supervision for therapists and clinical teams throughout Poland. She is the President of the Board and a founding member of the Polish Association for DBT (PTDBT) and a Secretary of the Bard of European DBT Association. She is one of the coordinators of the Family Connections® programme, which supports families of patients in Poland. She specialises in DBT and therapy for borderline personality disorder (BPD), emotional dysregulation and suicidality, and trauma-related disorders in patients of all ages.

Professor Michaela Swales

Michaela Swales PhD is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Professor in Clinical Psychology and Programme Director of the North Wales Clinical Psychology Programme, Bangor University. She trained in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Seattle in 1994 / 95 with Marsha Linehan and for twenty years ran a clinical programme for suicidal young people in an inpatient service. Professor Swales is the Director of the British Isles Training Team, a training team recognised internationally for its quality. She has trained more than a thousand professionals in DBT, seeding over 500 programmes, in both the UK and further afield. She co-authored, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: Distinctive Features (2009; 2017) and Changing Behavior in DBT: Problem-Solving in Action (2015). She is the Editor of the Oxford Handbook of DBT (2019). Her primary research interest is the effective implementation of evidence-based psychological therapies in routine clinical practice. Professor Swales was a member of the Working Group on Classification of Personality Disorders, reporting to the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Advisory Group for the Revision of ICD-10 Mental and Behavioural Disorders. She is President of the World DBT Association and of the European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders.