Dr Marisol Voncken (M.J.)
My PhD focussed on the cognitive perspective of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and was supervised by professor Bögels, one of the international top clinical researchers in SAD. What fascinated me most of the results of my PhD thesis was that, in contrast to what the cognitive theory hypothesises, SAD patients are less liked by their social interaction partners than individuals without SAD. This led to several publications in which I used experimental designs to study this social anxiety – social rejection relationship by observing participants interacting with confederates under various conditions. The focus of the Veni subsidy that I will finish in May 2015 are two social bonding behaviours: mimicry and self-disclosure. I study the relation between expectation of being disliked and these behaviours, but more importantly I study whether oxytocin nasal spray increases these behaviours in patients with SAD, clinical controls and healthy controls. Momentarily I am setting up a research line in which I study the enhancement of cognitive behavioural treatment techniques in subclinical samples. In addition, Dr. Marleen Rijkeboer and me developed a new treatment focused on flashforward rescripting in patients with SAD. Moreover, in collaboration with professor Arntz, professor Engelhard and professor Lee, I am leading a randomized clinical trail in which I compare imagery rescripting with EMDR with sites in Perth, Australia, Lübeck, Germany and Venlo and Maastricht, the Netherlands. This study is about to start this fall.
Dr Marisol Voncken (M.J.)
Memberships
Senior member of the research school “Experimental Psychopathology (EPP)”. To become a member you need have a high track record of publications (roughly 1 first author paper a year in an international peer reviewed journal) and your research needs to be based on experimental designs within in the psychopathology field
Member of the Dutch Cognitive Behavioural Therapist of the association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (Vereniging van Gedrags- en cognitive therapie, VGCt). To become a member, I followed all the necessary courses and supervision sessions, completed a learning therapy, treated an ample number of patients and completed a thesis.
Other academic activities
Since 2013 I am chairwomen of the Scientific Committee of the yearly Dutch conference of the association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (VGCt). From 2008 – 2012 I was a member of this committee. The aim of this conference is to transfer knowledge gained by researchers into the therapeutic setting. Over 1200 clinicians and researchers join this conference each year.
In 2014 I was a member of the Scientific Committee of the conference European of the Association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (EABCT). This EABCT conference was held in The Hague, the Netherlands and hosted by the Dutch association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (VGCt).
I was (2009-2012) chairwoman of the poster committee of the Dutch conference of the association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (VGCt)
Since 2010 I am a member of the committee of the Anxiety Disorders section of the association of Behavioural and Cognitive treatment (VGCt). The aim of this section is to establish a good network of therapists that treat patients with anxiety disorder in order to transmit evidence based therapeutic techniques
I am regularly asked to review for several scientific journals (e.g., Behavioural Research and Therapy, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Cognitive Therapy and Research, Behavior Therapy, Depression and Anxiety).
I supervise therapists in applying cognitive behavioural treatment and interpersonal behaviour treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder