Orgazational Structure
The Society is constituted into four regions
to reflect our international members
North America
Latin America
Europe – Africa
Asia – Australia
Committees
The Society has a number of Committees, all of which report to the Board of Directors. A summary of the Society’s current Committees is provided below.
For the rules governing the activities and membership of each of the Committees refer to the Society’s bylaws.
Biennial and Regional Congress Scientific Committees
The Committee members include a Chairperson and additional members who are appointed by the President and Vice-President with the approval of the Board of Directors.
Congress Organising Committee
Congress Organising Committees are established to oversee the local arrangements for the bi-annual and Regional Congresses.
Meet
our
Board
Members
President
Giles Newton-Howes
Wellington, New Zealand
President Elect
Brin Grenyer
Wollongong, Australia
I am the president of the ISSPD for the 2022-24 term and have been a board member for four years. I am an associate professor at the University of Otago, Wellington, and work ask a consultant psychiatrist in Ngā Tai Oranga, a regional personality disorder service in New Zealand.
Federation Vice-President
Lee Anna Clark
Notre Dame, IN, USA
I am ISSPD’s Federation Vice-President (2020-2022) whose role is to work with the Regional VPs to strengthen both them and their partnership with ISSPD. I first attended an ISSPD Congress in 1993, became an ISSPD member in 1996, and served on the Executive Board 2021-2016. I am a Professor at the University of Notre Dame and have been working toward a dimensional conceptualization of personality pathology since DSM-III was published in 1980.
Past President
Carla Sharp
Houston, TX, USA
I am the past president of the ISSPD. I am Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty and Research at the University of Houston. I have a long-standing interest in understanding, prevention and treatment of personality pathology across the lifespan.
Member at Large
Isabella Schneider
Heidelberg, Germany
I am working at the Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine of Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany. My research and clinical interests are in the study of social interaction, the effects of adverse early life experiences on mental health and parenting with personality disorders.
Early Career Member
Sharon M. Nelson
Ypsilanti, MI, USA
I am a clinical psychologist and an evaluation scientist with the Center for Evaluation and Implementation Resources (CEIR) and the Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center (SMITREC), part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
My work focuses on research and evaluation of suicide risk and emergency service use for patients diagnosed with personality disorders and serious mental illness using national healthcare systems data. I am also leading efforts to develop national training programs for clinicians to learn program evaluation best practices.
Secretary/Treasurer
Kenneth N. Levy
Philadephia, PA, USA
I am the Secretary-treasurer of the ISSPD. I am a Professor and the Associate Director of Clinical Training and Interim Co-Director of the Psychological Clinic at The Pennsylvania State University. At Penn State, I supervise a clinical training practicum emphasizing contemporary psychotherapy for personality disorders. My research interests are in the assessment, diagnosis, and psychotherapy treatment of personality disorders. Clinically I am trained to work with children, adolescents, and adults, although I mostly work with adults these days.
Student Representative (ex-officio)
Alexandra Stein
Teaneck, NJ, USA
I am a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, USA. My research aims to bridge the gap between scientific understanding and the lived experience of individuals with borderline personality disorder. As president of the ISSPD Student Section Committee,I am passionate about helping to facilitate a deeper understanding of personality disorders among students and trainees world-wide.
Meet
our
Regional
Leaders
AART-PD
Australasian-Asian Association for Research and Treatment of Personality Disorder
Giles Newton-Howes
Wellington, New Zealand
I am the president of the ISSPD for the 2022-24 term and have been a board member for four years. I am an associate professor at the University of Otago, Wellington, and work as a consultant psychiatrist in Ngā Tai Oranga, a regional personality disorder service in New Zealand.
Latin American Group
Alex Behn Berliner
Santiago, Chile
Stephan Doering
Vienna, Austria
Stephan Doering, M.D., is professor and chair of the Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, moreover he is a teacher and supervisor of Transference-focused Psychotherapy (TFP). His main research foci are diagnosis and (psychodynamic) treatment of patients with personality disorders.
Shirley Yen
Boston, MA, USA
I am a founding member of NASSPD, and am currently the President for the 2022-2025 term. I am an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I am also a Training Director of the Clinical Psychology program at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston MA.
Communications and social media committee
The ISSPD Communications Committee was formed in 2021 to help expand and grow the way that ISSPD communicates with members as well as the community. There are subcommittees devoted to managing and developing content for social media (like our Facebook or Twitter) and to designing and developing a new ISSPD website.
The Communications Committee is always seeking additional volunteers, including those with lived experience, researchers or clinicians from areas not currently represented on the committee, or volunteers with ideas for ways to develop and grow communications content.
Communications Director
Sharon M. Nelson
Ypsilanti, MI, USA
I am a clinical psychologist and an evaluation scientist with the Center for Evaluation and Implementation Resources (CEIR) and the Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center (SMITREC), part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
My work focuses on research and evaluation of suicide risk and emergency service use for patients diagnosed with personality disorders and serious mental illness using national healthcare systems data. I am also leading efforts to develop national training programs for clinicians to learn program evaluation best practices.
Website
Subcommitee
Isabella Schneider
Heidelberg, Germany
I am working at the Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine of Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany. My research and clinical interests are in the study of social interaction, the effects of adverse early life experiences on mental health and parenting with personality disorders.
Åse-Line Baltzersen
Oslo, Norway
Insert text ÅLB
Social Media
Subcommitee
Glauco Valdivieso
Peru
Glauco is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with a degree from the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru. He specializes in dialectical behavior therapy and has additional training in mentalization-based therapy and transference-focused psychotherapy. He is medical director of the Peruvian Institute for the Study and Comprehensive Approach to Personality (IPEP) and heads the mental health unit of the Villa El Salvador Emergency Hospital in Lima, Peru. Currently, he is pursuing a master’s degree in personality disorders from the Complutense University of Madrid. He is interested in personality and mood disorder research and has published in nationally and internationally indexed journals.
Kathrin Blum
Switzerland
Insert text Kathrine Blum
