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Inauguration Petra Hurks | Professor Psychodiagnostics

On 9 September 2022, 16.30hrs, Professor Petra Hurks will give her inaugural lecture as Professor Psychodiagnostics.

The road to psychology

Since the second grade of high school, Professor Hurks was already certain that she wanted to study math.  “Actually, I started this programme at university. However, during that first year, I started to doubt whether this was the field that I wanted to work in and/or whether this study suited me”. After thinking about a new direction for a while, a friend and psychology student showed her pictures of the human brain. “I was quickly convinced”.

After a year of general psychology, Hurks specialised in neuro- and rehabilitation psychology. “We looked at the relationship between brain and behaviour, and my first intention was to go into the field of healthcare. But even then, I wanted to be connected to research”. Hurks conducted an internship in psychiatry and at the Expertise centre Kempenhaeghe.

Research

When Hurks was graduating, a PhD position opened at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences. She was hired for the position and started research focusing on whether there are factors measurable at preschool age that predict whether a child will develop ADHD. “As a PhD Student, I did research, taught classes, and was given the opportunity to work as a psychologist in the field. Almost immediately after my promotion, I decided to make a choice, and, in addition to teaching, to zoom in on research, but patient oriented research, to not lose the connection to the clinical field”.

Psychodiagnostics

In the last years, Hurks’ research has homed in on psychodiagnostics. “It’s a broad field of research, we look at how you can (reliably and valid) map people’s behaviour and thinking, and if you can then make statements about these people”. When people get a diagnosis (e.g. ADHD), we then look at what treatment would fit best, and what the effects are of this treatment. “In my tenure as professor, I try not only to look at the "clinical side" of psychology, but also, for example, at the value of psychodiagnostics in education and work and organisational psychology. Here, in principle, you do the same thing. You try to make statements about people by means of instruments and by collecting information and combining it, in a transparent way, to be able to decide if e.g., you are going to hire somebody”.

Would you like to learn more about Professor Hurks’ field, then join the inaugural lecture on 9 September, 16.30hrs, Minderbroedersberg 4-6, or join via livestream.

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