Meetings/conferences

Previous meetings

Second meeting: Vienna, November 27-28, 2015

With support from the Medical University of Vienna, EuroPSI’s 2015 meeting was organized by Brigitte Hackenberg and Jennifer Kernreiter, in collaboration with Tove Lundberg (Working Group 3) and the EuroPSI Steering Group.

View the meeting programme.

View some of the presentations.

First meeting: London, September 17, 2014

At the time of the inaugural meeting, there were 63 members. A total of 46 network members attended the one-day event. Delegates came from 12 countries: Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA. They represented a range of disciplines: psychology, sociology, social anthropology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, medicine, nursing, art and education. In addition, several care user leads and advocates also attended and some were presenters.

After a brief introductory session by Lih-Mei Liao (UK), Katrina Roen (Oslo) and Hertha Richter-Appelt (Germany), the morning programme of presentations focused on recent research and theoretical analysis.

Limor Danon (Israel) focused on the sociological processes involved in secrecy, Natalie Delimita (Ireland) on the philosophical underpinnings of constructions of sexual difference, Caroline Sanders (UK) and her team on communication issues in clinical DSD teams, and Tove Lundberg (Sweden, Norway) on patient-centred versus decentred care.

The afternoon session focused on clinical practice and advocacy, starting with presentations from Julie Alderson (UK) on controversial dialogues in paediatrics and Hertha Richter-Appelt and her team (Germany) on differentiations between "sex allocation" and "gender assignment".

This was followed by two parallel workshops co-facilitated by two UK patient advocacy groups. Alison Bridges from the Klinefelter Syndrome Association (www.ksa.org) offered the audience a brief history of the KSA and appealed to EuroPSI members to develop better psychological care for affected children, adults and families. Ellie Magritte (dsdfamilies.org) and her team presented to the audience some of the challenges of self-disclosure about complete androgen insensitivity syndrome in social situation. They shared with workshop participants their creative vision for the development of resources to assist young people to overcome the psychosocial challenges.

The last hour of the meeting was devoted to network planning. Katrina Roen presented to the membership a potential organisational structure for EuroPSI that was the result of a preliminary work-up by a think tank at an informal gathering in Italy.

The enthusiastic responses on the day offered encouraging signs that the following groups will be formed imminently to begin to deliver the network’s mission: The Steering Committee will oversee the functions of the network. The main thrust of the work will be carried out in four working groups – WG1: Research Innovation; WG2: Clinical Excellence; WG3: Public Engagement; WG4: Professional Education.

The meeting as a whole covered new ground in bringing together representatives of previously scattered disciplines to disseminate new research findings and translate them into clinical excellence and public engagement and education, which is at the heart of the COST initiative. The full programme and attendance certificate are attached. Plans are underway to coordinate the next annual meeting in Vienna, Austria in 2015.

The founding members of EuroPSI gratefully acknowledge University College London and the staff of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the UK for facilitating this event, and the financial support by COST-Action BM1303 (DSDnet – A systematic elucidation of differences of sex development).

View the meeting programme

Read abstracts of 4 of the 6 main presentations

Lih-Mei Liao, Margaret Simmonds
(Local organisers for meeting)