Invited speakers

Jaakko Seikkula

Professor of Psychology University of Agder; Norway; Professor of psychotherapy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

-Professor of psychotherapy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

- Jaakko is a founder of Open Dialogue. He is an advanced specialist level family therapist; he also works as a trainer in psychotherapy. His main interests are in developing and analyzing family- and social network-centered practices in the most severe psychiatric crises, such as psychosis and depression. His research has been focused both on analyzing the effectiveness of open dialogues in psychosis and depression, and on developing the analysis of dialogues in family therapy and network therapy sessions.

Anders Lindseth

Professor Emeritus for practical philosophy at the Centre for Practical Knowledge, Nord University, Norway.

Until 2000 professor at the Department for Health Care Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tromsø. Now teaching philosophical practice at Vienna University.
Participating as practical philosopher at the annual International Meetings on the Treatment of Psychosis since 1997. Became honorary member of the Cuban Psychiatric Society in March 2019.

Mia Kurtti

Psychiatric nurse MSc, trainer and supervisor in Family and Couple therapy and Open Dialogue

Mia Kurtti is a psychiatric nurse MSc, trainer and supervisor in Family and Couple therapy and Open Dialogue. She has been working in public mental health services in Finland for over two decades, using therapeutic and dialogic approaches in her work with individuals and their families and networks. She also has management experience in creating service delivery systems that support dialogic practice. She has been a trainer on many international training programs that aim to generate dialogic and collaborative practice in mental health and social services. Questions about social equality and justice are important to her.

One of Mia’s aims in training processes is to open and expand the dialogue to ncrease people’s creativity and resourcefulness. In her role as a trainer, she is keen to emphasise and invite people who work in mental health settings to explore their own life narratives and the impact that these stories and their values have on their current professional practice.

Open Dialogue is one of the Good Practices in the World Health Organization`s “Mental health crisis services: promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches,” where Mia worked with the WHO authorities in creating the publication.

Tomi Bergström

Head psychologist and postdoctoral researcher

Dr. Tomi Bergström works as a head psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the Wellbeing Service County of Lapland and as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä. He has worked as a clinical psychologist at Keropudas Hospital, where the Open Dialogue approach originated. Alongside his clinical work, he has been researching the long-term outcomes of the Open Dialogue approach at the group and individual levels.

Magnus Hald

Psychiatrist, Director of division of mental health and substance abuse

Magnus P. Hald is a psychiatrist, and for the last nine years Director of the Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, University Hospital of North Norway. He has long been interested in the development of a network-oriented perspective on mental health, based on ideas that have come from his working with “reflecting teams” and “reflective processes.” For the past few years, he has been engaged in developing a medication-free unit within the University Hospital, which opened in January 2017.

Giovanni Rossi

President of the Association “Club SPDC No Restraint”. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist

President of the Association “Club Spdc No Restraint”. Psychiatrist and psychotherapist
Giovanni Rossi participated in the closure of the psychiatric hospital in Mantua and the planning and implementation of mental health services in Mantua and Modena. Editor of the radio station Rete 180 "La voce di chi sente le voci" ("The voice of those who hear voices") and promoter of the mental health radio movement. Involved in advocacy and evaluative research in mental health services, Giovanni Rossi was a WHO consultant for Latin America and the Caribbean and a professor of social psychiatry at the University of Modena and Reggio nell'Emilia.

Andrea Zwicknagl

Peer support specialist in Switzerland and she is part of the Swiss Hearing Voices Network.

- Andrea Zwicknagl is a peer support specialist in Switzerland and she is part of the Swiss Hearing Voices Network.
- She started working at the psychiatric services in Interlaken, Switzerland. She attended the first Open Dialogue training in Switzerland in 2015/16 and she helped to spread the word on this approach in the German-speaking area. She collaborates with the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and works within the Expert Committee for Psychiatric Drugs of the German Society for Social Psychiatry. In January 2017, she co-founded the first trialogue specific to the topic of reducing and stopping neuroleptics, based in Bern.

Regina Bisikiewicz

Founder of Polish Institute of Open Dialogue and partner to Leadership Management
International for Poland.

- Founder of Polish Institute of Open Dialogue and partner to Leadership Management International for Poland. Coach and facilitator of organizational culture change. For 30 years she has been fulfilling professional roles with an endless enthusiasm.

- As the mother, Regina did not agree on the status quo of mental health treatment in Poland. She was convinced that “whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon... must inevitably come to pass!”. This attitude led her to start thinking that in the XXI century there must be better treatment somewhere in Europe.

- As Regina found in the 2011 Open Dialogue she decided to transfer this approach to Poland. Not alone of course but with a team of people oriented to mental health system change.
First results:
- In 2018 Open Dialogue became “the heart” of the Community Mental Health Centers created in three counties of Poland and one district of Warsaw.
- In the same year the Government announced pilot of the mental health Reform based on moving mental health services from institutions to local society;
- In 2021 Regina was appointed by Mental Health Europe as one of female heroes of Europe’s mental health;
- Until XII/2021 there are 400 people graduated from Open Dialogue courses.

Raffaele Barone

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Director of the MDSM1 Calatino (Catania, Italy)

Raffaele Barone is a psychiatrist and group-analyst psychotherapist. He is the director of the Module 1 of the Mental Health Department (MDSM 1) Calatino, Asp Catania, Catania.

Raffaele Barone is a trainer and supervisor in psychotherapy specialisation schools and Mental Health Departments. He is a board member of the International Network of Democratic Therapeutic Communities (INDTC).

Elisa Gulino

Chief psychologist and psychotherapist

Elisa Gulino is a psychologist and a systemic-relational psychotherapist. She is the chief psychologist and Open Dialogue Coordinator at the Module 1 of the Mental Health Department (MDSM 1) Calatino, Asp Catania, Italy.

Cristiano Castelfranchi

Associate researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council, Italy.

Cristiano Castelfranchi is an associate researcher at the the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies of the National Research Council (Italy). The guiding aim of his research is to study autonomous goal-directed behavior as the root of all social phenomena, at the same time highlighting how social life shapes individual cognition.

Scientific Committee

Raffaella Pocobello

Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council, Italy.

- Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, National Research Council, Italy.

- Principal investigator in projects aimed to evaluate innovative approaches in mental health, such as Open Dialogue, Recovery Houses, and co-produced experimental centres. These interventions are based on the assumption «nothing about us without us», promoted by the international movement of mental health services users. Her main research activity aims at understanding and evaluating the outcomes of these interventions, with a focus on the analysis of cognitive, emotional and social processes underlying the recovery of people with experience of severe mental health issues.

Jimmy Ciliberto

Psychologist and psychotherapist

Psychologist and psychotherapist, he was trained in Milano (ITA) in Systemic Relational Psychotherapy and in Espoo and Jyväskylä (FIN) in Dialogical Practice in Couple and Family Therapy. Nowadays, he works both as a private practitioner in Milano and as a member of Pantigliate's Minors and Families Service, a municipality in Milano’s Metropolitan Area. Furthermore, he runs trainings and Supervisions in Mental Health Departments, Social Services and Psychotherapy Trainings all over Italy.

Anna Paola Marchetti

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist
Until 2020, Anna Paola Marchetti was head of the "Rehabilitation and home support Program" and the Open Dialogue team in the Public Mental Health Service in Turin, Italy. She is an OD trainer and supervisor.