Biography

Vernon M Neppe MD, PhD, Fellow Royal Society (SAf), DFAPA, MMed, FFPsych, DPCP(ECAO), DSPE, is Director of the Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute in Seattle, WA (www.pni.org). He is also Distinguished Professor and Executive Director, The Exceptional Creative Achievement Organization (www.ecao.us) and Director, Human Performance Enhancement Division (HPED) of the World Institute of Scientific Exploration (WISE)(http://instituteforscientificexploration.org/human-performance-enhancement-division/).

Applying peer-reviewed publications, presentations, international honors, medicolegal consultations, and invited lectures as a criterion, he has achieved an international reputation in numerous and diverse disciplines. These include the medical recognitions of being an internationally reputed Behavioral Neurologist, Neuropsychiatrist, Psychopharmacologist, Forensic specialist (Psychiatrist and Neuropsychiatrist) and Psychiatrist. All of the above five disciplines are currently listed under Woodward White's  peer-selected 'America's Top Doctors' where he has been listed in every issue (2001 on).  Dr Neppe has also published internationally in the following disciplines: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, Epileptology, Consciousness Research, Philosophy, Creativity, and Dimensional Biopsychophysics. His CV includes 10+ books (see www.brainvoyage.com), 2 plays, 700+ publications, 1000+ invited lectures and media interactions worldwide(see http://www.vernonneppe.org/about.php and http://www.pni.org/clinical/neppe/). In Consciousness Research, Phenomenology, Epileptology and Neuroscience, his contributions have also been pioneering and prodigious, and he is also is an internationally in demand Professional Speaker, Author and Playwright. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He, was the first USA based MD to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (South Africa). He established the first Division of Neuropsychiatry in a USA Psychiatry Department (University of Washington) and then a model institute (Pacific Neuropsychiatric Institute —PNI). He led the first USA and International Delegation in Neuropsychiatry and Psychopharmacology. He is originally from South Africa, where he mainly trained. He also completed a Fellowship at Cornell University, New York, thereafter. He has been Editor, Science Editor or Guest Editor of five different peer-reviewed international journals and is on many editorial boards. He has received numerous honors, most recently the prestigious, interdisciplinary, world-wide Whiting Memorial Prize.

Research Interest

Dr Neppe's pioneering work with adjunctive anticonvulsants in the early 1980s in psychiatry and later on with dyscontrol,  have impacted the lives of millions of people. He developed a  successful treatment for the previously incurable condition of  tardive dyskinesia using high-dose buspirone (see e.g., www.pni.org). He has described four new medical conditions, invented about a hundred new terms and suggested three major new classifications. He has developed more than thirty neuropsychiatric and psychiatric evaluations, tests and historical screens in neuropsychiatry and consciousness research. He has pioneered several new theoretical concepts in his disciplines. Additionally, he pioneered the links of brain function and subjective experience, is the world authority on déjà vu phenomena, and developed Phenomenology in the Neuroscience and Consciousness contexts. Some of  his research in Physics, Mathematics, Consciousness and Dimensional Biopsychophysics is discussed on the Vernon Neppe Research Site(www.VernonNeppe.com)and www.tdvp.org. The Vernon Neppe Gateway (www.VernonNeppe.org) provides further perspective. In English literature, he defined the literary genre of sciction and developed the 'conversagraph' (see www.brainvoyage.com)

Biography

Richard Morehouse is Professor Emeritus at Viterbo University (Wisconsin, USA) and Visiting Professor at Glyndwr University Wrexham (Wales, UK). He is the author of Beginning Interpretative Inquiry: a step-by-step guide to research and evaluation (2012) and co-author of Beginning Qualitative Inquiry: a philosophical and practical guide (1994). He was a Co-Editor, Analytic Teaching, (1990 to 1996) and editor of Analytic Teaching: The Community of Inquiry Journal (1996 – 2008.) He is currently Book Review editor for Analytic Teaching and Pedagogical Praxis and past president of the North American Association for Community of Inquiry (1994 – 2010).
He has taught psychology at Viterbo University for about 30 year. He taught a graduate course in Developmental Psychology at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota for more than ten years, and Education course at the University of Wisconsin for about 10 years. In addition to serving on several doctoral committees at the Union Institute and University, he has been an external examiner to two dissertations at the University of Melbourne.His teaching at Glyndwr University Wrexham is largely focused on docoral project and post doctoral publications. His work in education, psychology, and philosophy for children has been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, and Denmark.

Research Interest

Dissemination of research skills to the wide population  what we are initially calling Everyday Inquiry.

Biography

Kathryn Seifert, Executive Director of Eastern Shore Psychological Services, has worked for over 30 years in the areas of mental health, criminal justice, and addictions and has provided treatment and assessment services to youth and adults in community and correctional settings.  She is a licensed psychologist in Maryland and holds a PhD from the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus in Community-Social Psychology.  Additionally, she is past President of the Maryland Psychological Association, a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychological Specialists, and a fellow in the American College of Advanced Practice Psychologists. She has specialized in the assessment and treatment of individuals who are at risk for violence and who are emotionally disturbed, behaviorally disordered, victimized, delinquent, and/or attachment disordered.  She has lectured both nationally and internationally and provides training on the topics of “Predicting and Assessing the Risk for Violence,”  “Attachment Disorders,” and “Violence Risk Reduction Planning.”  Her book, How Children Become Violent, was published in October 2006.  In addition to being a published author, she has developed the CARE 2 Assessment.  It is a valid and reliable instrument designed to assess the risk for violence and to determine the appropriate level and type of services an at-risk youth requires.

Research Interest

Youth, Adult violence

Biography

Robert Perna, BSN/RN, Ph.D., ABN, ABPdN is an adult and pediatric board certified neuropsychologist and nurse who has worked for 18 years with multitrauma survivors with neurological injuries. He is a clinician and researcher and has published and presented on various topics related to traumatic brain injury, stroke, Neuro rehabilitation, pharmacology, and Neuro developmental disorders. He is a reviewer and editor for several journals and enjoys helping authors present their best quality research/manuscripts. 

Research Interest

Biography

Vedat Sar (born 1955 in Istanbul) received his medical degree in Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in 1981. He got residency training for Psychiatry in Hacettepe University Medical Faculty Hospital (Ankara) between 1981 and 1986. Following state service by Bayrampasa Forensicand Gümüssuyu Military Hospitals in Istanbul (1986-1989), He was appointed as head physician (Oberarzt) to Istanbul University Cerrahpas a Medical Faculty Hospital, Department of Psychiatry in 1989. In the same Department, he served as associate professor (Private dozent) between 1990 and1992. The same year, he was appointed as associate professor to the Istanbul University Istanbul Medical Faculty Department of Psychiatry where he served till 2014. He became full professor at the same Department in 1996. He established the Clinical Psychotherapy Unit (in 1993) and Dissociative Disorders Program (1994) in the same Department which served for research and treatment of dissociative Disorders in inpatient and outpatient settings. He also worked as a part of general psychiatric service in inpatient unit throughout the years uninterruptedly. Following a newly introduced legal regulation prohibiting concurrent private practice for university professors, He is going to leave his position in Istanbul University upon his own decision in April 17th, 2014.

Beside general psychiatric practice, He has trained medical students, interns, and psychiatry residents on trauma-related disorders and dissociation throughout two decades. He led numerous doctoral dissertations in psychiatry and forensic medicine, conducted several research projects, and supervised treatment of a large number of inpatients and outpatients. His worked to more than 80 publications internationally and more than 70 publications in domestic scientific journals. He edited two books in English, and wrote several chapters for books in English and Turkish.

Research Interest

Diagnosis and Treatment of psychiatric consequences of childhood trauma in adolescence and adulthood and dissociative disorders.

Biography

Aldo Spelic Ph.D. in the field of psychiatry, supervisor of clinical psychology in Croatian Psychological Society, supervisor–educator of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Croatian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, supervisor–educator of group–analysis in Institute of Group Analysis – Zagreb and Associate Professor of Developmental psychology at the University of 'Jurja Dobrila' in Pula, Croatia. After finishing his study of philosophy and psychology at the University in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1977 he was employed as a clinical psychologist at psychiatric department in MC in Pula. During this period he became supervisor of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Croatian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (1990) and one of the founders of the School of Balint method (1986) as well as a member of the School of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Inter-University Centre for Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik.

From 1994 he has been employed at the University in Pula (Croatia) and at the same time he started private psychotherapeutic practice. Through his psychotherapeutic practice, a special interest has been placed on group analysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy of autism. New findings obtained through 25 years of his psychotherapeutic work with autistic children were presented on many congresses and lectures at home and abroad.

After having finished education with D. Montgomery and P. Lewis, which led to a diploma as group analyst of the Institute of Group Analysis – London in 1997, he became a supervisor/educator at the Institute of Group Analysis in Zagreb, Croatia. As a Head of the Committee for Scientific Research of IGA–Zagreb in 2001 he founded, and through all these years, has organized and led International meeting Motovun’s days of group analysis whose aim has been to encourage, organize and conduct scientific research in a group.

In 2004 he attained Ph.D. degree in the field of psychiatry with the thesis that object relation development success in the early adolescence has influence in later success of gender identity development in the period of late adolescence. This interest for adolescent development he has continued further by investigating problems of academic adjustment that resulted in his foundation of Student counseling center at the University (2008).

During his work he has been member of the editorial board of Psychotherapy (Zagreb, Croatia) and Methodological Horizons (Pula, Croatia) and reviewer of Croatian journals (Croatian Review of Rehabilitation Research–HRRI, Croatian Journal of Education– CJE).

Research Interest

Clinical and developmental psychologist his interest is present in investigation of emotional development in early childhood (inter-subjectivity, empathy, object relation development) and adolescence (second individuation-separation; academic adjustment). Psychoanalytic psychotherapist his special interest in the last 25 years has been focused on psychoanalytic psychotherapy of autism. As a group analyst his special interest is in investigations of group processes and in the introduction of qualitative methods in these investigations. The interest in the problem of scientific establishment of investigation in psychotherapeutic practice has been realized through annual International meeting in Motovun from 2001.