Keynotes
International Keynote Speaker - S. Bryn Austin
S. Bryn Austin, ScD, is an award-winning researcher, teacher, and mentor. She is Professor at Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Boston Children’s Hospital and is director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders: A Public Health Incubator. She is a social epidemiologist and behavioral scientist with a research focus on public health approaches to eating disorders prevention with an emphasis on policy translation research and advocacy. Her research also focuses on determinants of sexual orientation and gender identity health inequities. She is Past President of the Academy for Eating Disorders and Eating Disorders Coalition.
Keynote Address on Friday 25 August - Accelerating Progress in Eating Disorders Prevention: A Call for Policy Translation Research and Training
The societal burden of eating disorders and the need for prevention are clear and compelling. Progress in prevention, however, has been slow, in part because of the overwhelming focus on interventions targeted at individual-level behavior change and the underwhelming contributions from professionals outside of the clinical disciplines. Progress in the field can be accelerated, but only through a realignment of our priorities, which we must shift in two critical ways to build: 1) Translational research designed to inform policy and environmental changes with high potential for large-scale impact; and 2) Training initiatives that increase disciplinary and practice expertise to inform policy translation action, including the disciplines of public health, economics, health law, and more. By prioritizing policy translational research and training, we can substantially accelerate the pace of progress in eating disorders prevention.
S. Bryn Austin, ScD, is an award-winning researcher, teacher, and mentor. She is Professor at Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Boston Children’s Hospital and is director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders: A Public Health Incubator. She is a social epidemiologist and behavioral scientist with a research focus on public health approaches to eating disorders prevention with an emphasis on policy translation research and advocacy. Her research also focuses on determinants of sexual orientation and gender identity health inequities. She is Past President of the Academy for Eating Disorders and Eating Disorders Coalition.
Keynote Address on Friday 25 August - Accelerating Progress in Eating Disorders Prevention: A Call for Policy Translation Research and Training
The societal burden of eating disorders and the need for prevention are clear and compelling. Progress in prevention, however, has been slow, in part because of the overwhelming focus on interventions targeted at individual-level behavior change and the underwhelming contributions from professionals outside of the clinical disciplines. Progress in the field can be accelerated, but only through a realignment of our priorities, which we must shift in two critical ways to build: 1) Translational research designed to inform policy and environmental changes with high potential for large-scale impact; and 2) Training initiatives that increase disciplinary and practice expertise to inform policy translation action, including the disciplines of public health, economics, health law, and more. By prioritizing policy translational research and training, we can substantially accelerate the pace of progress in eating disorders prevention.
Local Keynote Speaker - Chris Thornton
Chris Thornton is the Founder and Clinical Director of The Redleaf Practice. Chris has worked with individuals and families with eating disorders for nearly 30 years. He provides supervision and case consultation to all receiving treatment at the practice. Chris has dedicated his career to improving the eating disorder sector in Australia, with his continued efforts culminating in him being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of eating disorders by the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders in 2020. Over the last 30 years Chris has consulted to inpatient, day patient and outpatient treatment services at major centres of eating disorders in both Australia and New Zealand. He continues to supervise programs and clinicians throughout Australia.
Keynote Address on Saturday 26 August - Venturing Outside the Village:
Can we rethink rigidity and certainty by incorporating different perspectives into our treatment, training and supervision?
As humans we are drawn to certainty. We are drawn to the simplest answer to even the most complex questions of human behaviour. Once we ‘know’ the answer there is a tendency to hold onto the certainty that that answer gives us. We then pass the answer down to future generations as an unquestioned truth. This has significant implications for how we are trained in the treatments we provide our clients.
Inside our village, we hold to a ‘medical model’ of psychotherapy, where our treatment manuals are seen as the effective component of the therapy we provide our patients. If we deviate from a treatment manual, we are shamed for being non-adherent and drifting from the truth. What if we ventured outside the village and into the wider world of the psychotherapy literature? Would this help us rethink the certainty and rigidity with which we hold this belief in treatment manuals. Would we need to abandon manuals all together? Is there a middle path?
This Keynote will address a number of questions. Does psychotherapy work? What treatment works? If it is helpful, how might therapy help? How may our treatment, training and supervision models need to adapt to help therapists achieve better clinical outcomes? What could we learn from outside the village to make us better therapists?
Chris Thornton is the Founder and Clinical Director of The Redleaf Practice. Chris has worked with individuals and families with eating disorders for nearly 30 years. He provides supervision and case consultation to all receiving treatment at the practice. Chris has dedicated his career to improving the eating disorder sector in Australia, with his continued efforts culminating in him being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of eating disorders by the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders in 2020. Over the last 30 years Chris has consulted to inpatient, day patient and outpatient treatment services at major centres of eating disorders in both Australia and New Zealand. He continues to supervise programs and clinicians throughout Australia.
Keynote Address on Saturday 26 August - Venturing Outside the Village:
Can we rethink rigidity and certainty by incorporating different perspectives into our treatment, training and supervision?
As humans we are drawn to certainty. We are drawn to the simplest answer to even the most complex questions of human behaviour. Once we ‘know’ the answer there is a tendency to hold onto the certainty that that answer gives us. We then pass the answer down to future generations as an unquestioned truth. This has significant implications for how we are trained in the treatments we provide our clients.
Inside our village, we hold to a ‘medical model’ of psychotherapy, where our treatment manuals are seen as the effective component of the therapy we provide our patients. If we deviate from a treatment manual, we are shamed for being non-adherent and drifting from the truth. What if we ventured outside the village and into the wider world of the psychotherapy literature? Would this help us rethink the certainty and rigidity with which we hold this belief in treatment manuals. Would we need to abandon manuals all together? Is there a middle path?
This Keynote will address a number of questions. Does psychotherapy work? What treatment works? If it is helpful, how might therapy help? How may our treatment, training and supervision models need to adapt to help therapists achieve better clinical outcomes? What could we learn from outside the village to make us better therapists?
