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welcome address
Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to welcome so many people to the third conference of our organisation, the
European Society for the Study of Personality Disorder (ESSPD). In particular I extend a
warm welcome to people from outside Europe who have travelled far to join us although
of course I extend a similarly warm welcome to those of you from Europe! The ESSPD
has come to Rome this year, hoping to build on our highly successful conferences held in
Berlin and Amsterdam. We are looking forward to an excellent programme which surely
will meet our organisational aims of furthering research and increasing health service
and public interest in personality disorder. It is a tribute to our members and Board of the
ESSPD that there are so many of you who have been to the previous conferences and we
hope that you will make the ESSPD conference a regular date in your diaries every two
years. In the interim years we have a smaller clinically-based conference with extended
workshops. Next year in June 2015 this will be held in Tallinn, Estonia. Further details are
available on our website.
I would like to thank Cesare Maffei for his support as Chair of the conference committee and
Andrea Fossati who organised the scientific programme. I am sure that you will agree that
there is something of interest to everyone and, given our difficulties in choosing between
the submissions, the programme is of a high scientific standard. In the scientific sessions
we wish to promote discussion and I hope that many of you will feel free to question and
to approach speakers during the breaks. Don’t be shy – a good conference is made by
scientific discussion, networking, meeting people with similar interests, and learning from
others. As an organisation we want to stimulate interest in personality disorder from young
people and we have again awarded a young researcher prize. Make sure that you come
to the award ceremony.
I look forward to meeting you at the conference and please stop me to give me your views at
any time. This will be my last conference as ESSPD President and I would like to thank the
ESSPD Board for all their support over the past 3 – 4 years. The organisation is flourishing
and we can look forward to successful meetings in the coming years.
Anthony W. Bateman, United Kingdom
President European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders
