Ann Buysse is professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent University, where she works at the Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology and were she is head of the research group of Family Psychology (Family Lab).
She is co-organizer and trainer of the Postgraduate Training Program in Mediation at Ghent University.
As a researcher, she has a broad expertise in qualitative and quantitative research, interdisciplinary research and fundamental outcome/process research and methodological research in the field of family psychology. Recently she was chief promoter of two interdisciplinary, inter-university research projects on divorce in Flanders (i.e., IPOS (externe link)) and sexual health in Flanders (i.e., Sexpert). Currently she is co-promoter of the GOA-research project on social and genetic parenthood (i.e., Parenthood Research team) and co-principal investigator of an interdisciplinary, inter-university research project into new processes samengstelde families (FittiF).
Lesley Verhofstadt conducts and supervises research that increases the scientific understanding of couple/family (dys)functioning, thereby contributing to preventive and therapeutic interventions that are aimed to alleviate the distress of couples, families, and their members. She therefore developed research programs on two main topics:
1. Behavioral, emotional, and cognitive processes underlying relationship dissatisfaction in couples. More specifically:
Psychological needs frustration and emotion regulation
Deficits in everyday mind-reading accuracy
Deficits in dyadic coping/support provision
Conflict management
2. Family stress and coping
This research is centered around the question why the strains and challenges of major life events bring some families closer together and break other families apart. Research is conducted within families confronted with
Pediatric cancer
Expatriate assignment
Imprisonment
As a member of editorial boards of journals for practitioners (Systeemtherapie, Tijdschrift voor Klinische Psychologie) she is strongly committed to facilitate the translation of findings from fundamental couple/family research for practitioners. She furthermore serves as the representative of the sector Research & Education in the Belgian Commission of Psychologists and as a board member of the Belgische Vereniging voor Relatietherapie, Gezinstherapie en Systeemcounseling. She teaches courses on Couple & Family Studies, Couple & Family Therapy, and Counseling Skills, and works as a staff member and trainer within the Postgraduate Training Program in Couple, Family, and Systemic Psychotherapy at Ghent University.
My research interests are focused on the study of sexual minorities (in casu lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual men and women), research methods, and evidence-based policy and practice.
Currently I am coordinating PSYNC, a research consortium within the field of clinical psychology. Within PSYNC, I specifically focus on working with different groups of stakeholders (policy actors, researchers, practitioners,…) and on valorization (all things related to the translation of research results into products as well as science communication).
Recent studies:
The active ingredients of successful co-creation trajectories and collaboration with diverse stakeholders (government, businesses, academia and citizens)
Citizen science, citizen envolvement, and societal impact
The relationship between social network composition, sexual identities, and behavioral choices
Minority stress and (mental) health
Comparing online and offline survey methods
The relationship between visibility management as a coping strategy and the experience of stress
Characteristics of the sexual debut in gay and bisexual adolescents and young adults.
My research interests concerns systemic-psychological research on reproductive health. My current research project focuses on couples who are being confronted with an unexpected reproductive situation. The aim of the project is to investigate how couples deal with this situation in terms of decision-making and coping.
Three samples are being investigated:
Women/couples who are confronted with an unintended pregnancy and seek an induced abortion
Couples who are confronted with an unintended pregnancy and plan to carry the pregnancy to term
Couples who are experiencing fertility problems and plan an IVF treatment
I make use of prospective study designs (e.g. diary studies) and dyadic data.
In 2011-2013, I was a member of the multidisciplinary Sexpert team (Sexpert). Prior to that, I worked on a study about the value of pre-abortion counseling sessions in Flanders.
My research focuses on the impact of child cancer on families and their individual members (ill child, parents and siblings). Specifically, I examine:
The long- and short-term effects of child cancer on families and their members
The factors that may help families and their members to recover from crisis and to adapt to the stressful circumstances resulting from child cancer
Parents' and siblings' experience of the diagnosis, treatment and consequences for the family life
In order to fully capture how child cancer affects each of the family members, a multi-method (questionnaires, interviews) and multi-informant approach is used.
My research focuses on alternative conflict resolution. Specifically, I study:
how a trajectory mediation program affects family members' feelings of control, autonomy and self-determination in making the decision for the trajectory by which they will resolve their family conflict.
what affects different conflict resolution trajectories (litigating, mediation, amicable settlement, negotiation…) have on the quality of relationships and the quality of life of family members who resolve their family conflicts using these different trajectories.
to what extent a mediation program at schools affects pupils', teachers' and parents' attitudes towards alternative conflict resolution.
My current research is part of a multidisciplinary large scale project on family transitions in Flanders (i.e. Families in transition, transition in Families; FittiF).
My research interest broadly concerns the diversity of family forms in our contemporary society and how these diverse families co-construct a new family narrative. More specifically, my research focuses on stepfamilies and aims to gain insight into the following research topics by applying both qualitative and quantitative research methods:
Family processes underlying the formation and maintenance of a new family identity
Experiences of fathers in stepfamilies and their way of ‘doing family’
Patterns of interpersonal mattering and felt influence in stepfamily relationships
I am a teaching assistant in the familylab. I teach the practical courses for couple and familytherapy and I am conducting research on survivors of sexual violence.
Being a survivor of sexual violence as an adult man or woman is often accompanied by many changes in several life domains. My research focuses on the psychological and social changes survivors of sexual violence may experience. More specifically, I am interested in:
Which psychological and social changes survivors experience in the aftermath of sexual violence
Whether these psychosocial changes are exclusively negative
Which factors influence these changes
Potential gender differencesin the experience of these changes
To answer these questions, a multi-method (interviews and questionnaires) method will be adopted.
Besides working as a teaching assistant/researcher, I work as a independent clinical psychologist.
I am studying everyday mind-reading (=empathic accuracy), which is how accurate partners can estimate each other’s thoughts and feelings during interactions. More specifically, I aim to investigate:
the influence of motivation (for the well-being of the self, the partner or the relationship) on empathic accuracy
the link between emotions and empathic accuracy
the convergence/divergence of empathic accuracy throughout an interaction
A combination of questionnaires, videotaped interaction task, and empathic accuracy paradigms are used.
I am a clinical psychologist with specialisation in systemic therapy (Interactie Academie, Antwerpen) and in gestalttherapy (Instituut voor communicatie, Kortrijk). Besides my job as a practice assistent in the Psychology Master Education, I work with couples and families in a psychotherapeutic centre (PTC Rustenburg) and as an independent psychotherapist.
My former work experiences were in different clinical settings: psychiatry, rehabilitation, (mentally) disabled people, internment, cardiac revalidating, victim support and education.
Being a clinical psychologist/sexologist, I am interested in the psychological and sexual development of children and adults. My special interest focuses on attachment strategies and the effects on (sexual) relationships.
I am also interested in issues related to mental and sexual health, sexual identity and -orientation, sexual problems, violence and trauma. I combine working at a group practice as psychotherapist-sexologist with working with sex offenders in a forensic team in Ghent. I'm also supervisor in the clinical sexology training program.
