Thomas Elbert

Background

About Thomas Elbert

Thomas Elbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Konstanz, studied Psychology and Physics. His publications (h-index>70, more than citations) focus on the self-regulation of the brain and neuroplasticity in relation to psychopathology. Elbert has demonstrated how adverse conditions and stress affects brain, mind, behavior and mental illness via adaptive and maladaptive neuroplastic reorganisation. Together with, Dres. Neuner and Schauer, Elbert has developed Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), a culturally universal intervention for the treatment of traumatic spectrum disorders in survivors of organized and domestic violence, which he had field-tested in war-torn areas. Elbert has worked in crisis regions in East-Africa, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Currently he is speaker of the DFG research unit “Science of Social Stress”, has received a prestigious Reinhard Kosselleck project about the psychobiology of human aggression. He holds an ERC advanced investigator grant about trauma and violence, is a Hector Fellow and a member of the German Academy of Science. He is speaker of the DFG research unit “Science of Social Stress”, and is the PI for the ongoing grant that supports the University’s center of excellence on Psychotraumatology. He is a board and founding member of the NGO vivo. Elbert is also a Honorary Professor of Université Lumiere in Bujumbura, Honorary Lecturer at Mbarara University of Science and Technology and OCSE Professor in the National Italian Commission for scientific qualification.