Arjan Videler appointed to endowed chair ’Psychotherapy for Elderly’

Tilburg University has appointed Arjan Videler to a new endowed chair "Psychotherapy for the elderly" for a five-year term starting July 1, 2024. This chair is funded by GGz Breburg and is embedded within Tranzo, the scientific center for care and well-being at Tilburg University. The new chair will focus on increasing and improving knowledge about effective psychotherapeutic treatment methods for the elderly.

The number of elderly people is expected to rise significantly in the coming years, along with the number of elderly individuals with mental disorders. However, scientific knowledge about psychological problems in the elderly and their treatment through psychotherapy is limited. Moreover, there is a significant under-treatment of these issues. There is a strong need for evidence-based treatments for the elderly in practice. The endowed chair "Psychotherapy for the elderly" aims to increase knowledge about the application of psychotherapeutic methods for the elderly, improve their effectiveness, promote education on psychotherapy for the elderly, and enhance the accessibility of this therapy.

Arjan Videler: "Throughout my clinical work, teaching, and research activities, I have always been intrigued by the question of how to improve and implement psychotherapy for the elderly in clinical practice. Psychotherapy for the elderly is very feasible and highly meaningful-even at an advanced age."

About Arjan Videler

Endowed Professor on the Endowed Chair ’Psychotherapy for the Elderly’

Arjan Videler, appointed to the new endowed chair by the Executive Board, has been working as a psychotherapist and psychologist at GGz Breburg since 1992. Currently, he is the coordinator of top clinical care and science at GGz Breburg and a leading figure at PersonaCura, a top clinical center for personality and developmental disorders in seniors. Besides his clinical work, Arjan is a certified supervisor of the VGCt (Dutch Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies) and a lecturer at RINO Zuid in Eindhoven and RINO Groep in Utrecht, both institutes for advanced training in mental health care. He is also a senior researcher at PersonaCura and chairman of the scientific research committee at GGz Breburg. Since 2006, Arjan has been an active member of the Expert Panel on Personality in Older Adults (EPO), a Dutch-Belgian research group on personality disorders in later life. His PhD research focused on the treatment of personality disorders in the elderly, an international collaboration between Tilburg University, Tranzo in the Netherlands, and the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Department of Clinical and Lifespan Psychology, in Belgium. He is also an expert on autism in the elderly.

About the Endowed Chair

The chair will be shaped at Tilburg University and is established and funded by GGz Breburg, a mental health care institution that has long encouraged research, innovation, and knowledge sharing in this field, particularly within PersonaCura, a TOPGGz-recognized department for geriatric psychiatry. GGz Breburg participates in Tranzo, the scientific center for care and well-being at the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, within the Academic Workplace Geestdrift. Arjan Videler will collaborate on clinical research with researchers from the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at Tilburg University. He will also provide education related to his chair theme within the university.