Claudi Bockting (born in 1969) is a Dutch clinical psychologist and Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Amsterdams Faculty of Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Centers. Her research program focuses on identifying etiological factors of common mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders and substance abuse, and developing evidence-based psychotherapeutic interventions.
She has published more than 190 journal articles, is the author of several (self-help) books, and developed Preventive Cognitive Therapy, a version of cognitive behavioral therapy specifically developed for preventing relapse in individuals with a major depressive disorder. As the director of the Centre for Urban Mental Health at the University of Amsterdam, her methods include applying network theory to the study of mental disorders in a public health setting.
Bockting serves as an expert on mental health conditions and treatment in several institutional functions throughout The Netherlands. She is a member of the scientific advisory boards at the Dutch Association for Psychotherapy (NVP, Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychotherapie), the Dutch Research Council (NWO, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijke Onderzoek), and the Dutch Health Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland). She is also the head of training at the postdoctoral training center for licensed health psychologists Cure & Care, and the president of the European Association for Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment.
Early life and education
Bockting was born 1969 in The Netherlands. She studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam and received her cum laude master's degree in Clinical Psychology in 1993. Bockting finished her postdoctoral psychotherapy training at the RINO Utrecht in 1999 and subsequently worked as a licensed psychotherapist at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers in Amsterdam, where she started her PhD research on recurrent depression at the same time. In 2006, Bockting acquired her PhD from the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Medicine, with her thesis: "The rhythm of depression: The course of recurrent depression and prevention of relapse using cognitive therapy".
Career and research
After receiving her PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2006, Bockting accepted a position as a Professor of Depression for Ethiology, Recidivism and Chronicity at the University of Groningen, which she held until 2014. From 2014 to 2017, Bockting was a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Utrecht University. In 2017 she got appointed as Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Amsterdam, University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry. Since 2019, Bockting is further the founder and Director of the Center for Urban Mental Health together with developmental psychologist Prof. Dr. Reinout Wiers, an interdisciplinary research priority area of the University of Amsterdam attached to the Institute for Advanced Study. She has received several grants and academic prices, was a fellow at among others the World Health Organization, The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and published more than 170 articles in academic journals.
Psychological interventions
Since her doctoral training, Bockting research focusses on the development and testing of sustainable psychological interventions for depression and relapse. Conducting both randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses, she repeatedly showed that pharmacological treatment is not superior to psychological interventions in preventing relapse. She developed and tested a cognitive-behavioural therapy protocol specifically designed to target relapse in patients with depression (Preventive Cognitive Therapy), which is currently also being tested to target remitted symptoms in recovered patients, and applied her findings to new forms of therapy. Together with partners, Bockting developed a digital app-based real-time intervention for youths with depression and anxiety disorders, which is tailored to the adolescents individual needs by using ecological momentary assessment data and network analysis.