Working psychologically with people who have experienced war and conflict – a Psychology Cultures Seminar

This is a free event, open to all, and will be held via MsTeams.

Join us in this seminar as we explore the power of various psychological approaches to support individuals who have experienced war and conflict. We will evaluate different models of trauma to discuss the relevancy of distress using the Western Lens. We will end by examining the significance of working systemically here in the UK and in low-income post-conflict countries.

Speakers: Dr Tori Snell, Professor Panos Vostanis & Dr Numan Ali

Tori Snell is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist working in the Addictions Directorate of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL). She started out as a journalist and has lived in Spain, Southeast Asia, the Gulf and the Middle East. Witnessing the disproportionate effects of historic and ongoing conflict on existing inequalities led her to seeking a place on the Leicester DClinPsy course. Prior to training, she worked in Jordan assessing the psychological experiences of recruits to the Iraqi security forces and with non-governmental organisations, including the Japanese non-governmental organisation NICCOD, supporting people displaced from Iraq and Palestine. The work was under the clinical supervision of Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Numan Ali with whom she still works remotely as an associate in his Baghdad-based clinic. From 2007-2019, Tori was on the Board of the Norway-UK based Children and War Foundation. Since 2009, she has served as the English language editor of the Arab Journal of Psychiatry and has held an honorary clinical teaching post on the Leicester DClinPsy course since 2015. Tori is a Director with the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK (ACP-UK).

Panos Vostanis is Professor of Child Mental Health. He has published extensively on the impact of trauma on child mental health, and evaluation of interventions and services for traumatized children. He has longstanding clinical experience with vulnerable children and youth. Panos is also Research and Training Director of the World Awareness for Children in Trauma (www.wacit.org), which provides service transformation, capacity building and evaluation for children in contexts of conflict and disadvantage. To this effect, he is involved in several projects with NGOs and academic centres in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Numan Ali is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director of Al-Razi Medical Center in Baghdad. A retired Brigadier General (Medical Corps), Numan started his psychiatry career at Al Rashid Military Hospital from 1988, until it was destroyed in 2003. He worked at Ibn Rushd Psychiatric Hospital until 2007; and then in Jordan at a private psychiatric hospital for people with addiction before a secondment to the Japanese non-profit Nippon International Corporation for Community Development (NICCOD) supporting people displaced by war and conflict. In 2009, Numan was appointed Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Baghdad Teaching Hospital, retiring from public service in 2020. He was Chair of the Scientific Council for Psychiatry (Arab Board) from 2008 to 2015 and has served on the Editorial Board of the Arab Journal of Psychiatry since 2007. Numan graduated from The College of Medicine, University of Baghdad in 1974. From 1981 to 1985 he was awarded a government scholarship to train in Dublin at St Patrick’s Hospital and St James’ Hospital and, later, the Institute of Neurology (London). He gained membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1985 and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College in London in 2002.

Any queries should be addressed to Char Slaymaker at the University of Leicester - at cs842@leicester.ac.uk - and NOT to TicketTailor itself