Towards Integration and Impact: Clinical Psychology Takes Action for Mental Health in Europe

Abstract

From October 31 to November 2, 2019, the first conference of the new European Associa‐ tion of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment (EACLIPT) took place at Tech‐ nische Universität Dresden, Germany (Beesdo-Baum et al., 2019). It was a historic mo‐ ment that brought together clinical psychologists from many different regions of the world. About 300 researchers and psychotherapists discussed the most recent develop‐ ments in clinical psychology, possibilities for outreach, collaboration across countries, improvement of therapy delivery and the science-policy dialogue. With their inspiring presentations, they brought to life one of the main goals of EACLIPT: fostering exchange among clinical psychologists from all over Europe (Andersson, 2019). The five renowned keynote speakers reflected the diversity of topics at #EACLIPT2019: Claudi Bockting (University of Amsterdam) called for more engagement with European politicians to raise awareness for mental health and the efficacy of psychological treatments. Present‐ ing the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies program (IAPT; Clark, 2018), David Clark (University of Oxford) demonstrated that such engagement can be extremely fruit‐ ful. New developments in psychotherapy were presented by Susan Bögels (University of Amsterdam) on mindfulness in families and by Maria Karekla (University of Cyprus) on e-mental-health tools. Stefan Hofmann (Boston University) integrated different novel ap‐ proaches in his talk on Modern Process-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The scientific program included symposia and posters on novel developments in the field of mechanisms underlying mental disorders, epidemiology, prevention, diagnostics, psychotherapeutic treatment, and methods. Thus, the full spectrum of clinical psycholo‐ gy and psychological intervention was represented at the conference. The program also