Claudi L. Bockting, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Amsterdam University Medical Center, The Netherlands, and cofounder and codirector of the interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Mental Health at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on finding potentially modifiable factors that can be targeted with innovative interventions to prevent or treat depression, anxiety, and suicidality. The developer of preventive cognitive therapy (PCT) as a treatment against relapse in depressive disorders, Dr. Bockting has been a practicing clinical psychologist since 1993. She is author or coauthor of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals such as Nature, World Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, and Lancet Psychiatry and wrote several intervention books. She offers international intervention workshops focused on treatment of depression and anxiety as well as relapse prevention. Dr. Bockting was a visiting professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 2023. She is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel, an elected membership in the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and fellowships at the Beck Institute, the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Amsterdam, and the World Health Organization. Her website is Intervention Lab | Claudi Bockting .
How to disrupt the recurrent rhythm of depression? Psychological interventions (Preventive Cognitive Therapy; PCT) have been developed, specifically tailored to meet the needs of individuals who are in partial remission or those fully remitted. The interventions target risk factors for relapse including stress sensitivity, dysfunctional (cognitive) beliefs, and positive emotion regulation. The use of imagery and phantasy will be discussed as well as the scientific evidence for long term preventive effects up to 20 years.