Get to know us!
Below you can read more about our institutional partners, the team behind Lemon Tree, our social media details, and how to get in touch.
Our Partners
Lemon Tree is proud to collaborate with the Amsterdam University Medical Center, the University of Amsterdam, and its Institute for Advanced Study
At the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Lemon Tree regularly organizes expertmeetings. In line with with the IAS mission, we thereby facilitate high-level interdisciplinary exchanges on key topics related to mental health.
The Lemon Tree Center is embedded in the Department of Psychiatry of the AmsterdamUMC (location AMC). We collaborate with various staff members of the Department of Psychiatry on a variety of topics (see ‘Projects’ for more info)
The University of Amsterdam is a renowned university that we are proud to collaborate with.
The Lemon Tree team
Although still growing, the Lemon Tree team currently consists of the following people
Prof. Damiaan Denys
Head of Lemon Tree Center
Damiaan is a faculty professor of psychiatry at the University of Amsterdam (UVA) and has published more than 500 scientific articles; pioneered the application of deep brain stimulation in psychiatric disorders and received the 2020 IgNobel Prize for his discovery of misophonia. His book, “The Deficit of Excess,” offers a penetrating analysis of our sick relationship with healthy psychological suffering. His latest book, “Psychotherapy in Motion,” describes the combination of psychotherapy with boxing.
In addition to science, he focuses on broad social issues of fear, control, happiness, normality and meaning. He wrote and acted in 2015 a theatrical monologue about anxiety with which he toured the Netherlands and Belgium. Denys is widely known for his honest questions and courageous positions in complex debates.
Dr. Roy Dings
Scientific Coordinator
Roy obtained a PhD in the philosophy of psychiatry at Radboud University (NL) on the topic of ‘self-illness ambiguity’. He was a guest researcher at the University of Memphis (US) and a postdoctoral researcher at Ruhr University Bochum (Germany).
Aside from being involved with the Lemontree Center, Roy works as a postdoc at Radboud University. His research centers around a twofold question: How does mental illness impact (i) who one is and (ii) what one knows? Regarding the former, Roy investigates the phenomenon of self-illness ambiguity, where people may be unclear on how their illness affects their identity and agency. Regarding the latter, Roy focuses on the idea of ‘experiential knowledge’ in mental health care.
Dr. Julian Kiverstein
Senior Researcher
Julian’s research continues the neurophenomenological research programme initiated by Francisco Varela in the 1990s combining phenomenological descriptions of first-person lived experience with third-person neuroscientific methods.
Recently, he has drawn extensively on the predictive processing theory to provide an explanatory bridge between third-person neuroscience and first-person lived experience. He has applied this approach to neurophenomenology to develop theoretical work on the nature of pain and suffering, depression, addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as in the domains of positive psychology to study happiness, subjective well-being and meaning in life.
His work at the Lemontree Centre will continue this research programme to address such fundamental philosophical questions as the mind-body problem in psychotherapy and psychiatry, the first-person experience of mental illness and mental wellness, death and dying, mindfulness, and the disturbances of embodied experience in psychopathologies.
Aros Salah
Creative Director
Aros is currently studying medicine at the University of Amsterdam and works at the Pedicatric Intensive Care Unit at the Amsterdam Medical Center. For 4 years in a row she was part of the board at IFMSA that was responsible for organizing an international medical summer school. The topics that were covered here ranged from stigma around hiv/aids to the role of policymakers in rare diseases. She is also the project assistant for Art in Grief where the role of art in resilience is explored. At the Lemontree Center she explores the creative range of motion.
Contact Us
Do you want to collaborate in research? Are you looking to team-up in organizing an event? Are you a journalist writing on the topic of mental health? Or do you have any other question regarding Lemon Tree, our events or our projects, please do not hesitate to get in touch!
Office
Room PA2.122, Meibergdreef 5, 1105 AZ Amsterdam
Phone
+31 (0)20 891 36 56