Project Launch: Transitions - Rethinking Psychiatric Reform
Bush House, Strand Campus, London
About the event
Join us for the official launch of Transitions, a Wellcome Trust-funded research project exploring the ethical and political dimensions of psychiatric deinstitutionalization (PDI) in Brazil and Chile.
This event will bring together researchers, policy experts, and mental health advocates to discuss the historical roots and contemporary relevance of PDI in Latin America — and what these insights mean for global debates on mental health reform today.
The launch will feature keynote presentations, research overviews, and open discussion, followed by a drinks reception.
Please note that admission is free, but registration is required. This is a hybrid event. Please register for in-person attendance, or register to join this event online.
See more information about the project
Presentations by:
- Devora Kestel, Director, Department of Mental Health, Brain Health and Subtance Use – World Health Organization.
- Dr Cristian Montenegro, Principal Investigator, Transitions Project
- Dr Sofia Bowen, Postdoctoral Researcher (Chile)
- Dr Felipe Szabzon, Postdoctoral Researcher (Brazil)
- Prof. Hanna Kienzler, Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, KCL
Event schedule (Highlights):
- Opening remarks from Devora Kestel on global psychiatric reform
- Overview of the Transitions Project and its research agenda
- Presentations from the project's core research team
- Reflections from Hanna Kienzler on the broader significance of PDI
- Open Q&A with audience
- Drinks and networking reception
Who should attend?
Academics, students, policymakers, practitioners, activists, and anyone interested in global mental health, psychiatric reform, and Latin American social movements.
Accessibility & Refreshments
- The venue is fully accessible
- Coffee and light refreshments will be served
- A drinks reception will close the event
About the speakers
Dévora Kestel
Director, Mental Health, Brain Health and Substance Use – WHO
Dévora Kestel is a senior global mental health policy expert with over 30 years of international experience across Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America. She has led and advised national mental health reform efforts, with a strong focus on community-based systems and human rights.
She holds degrees in Psychology (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina) and Public Health (LSHTM, UK). Her career includes work in Trieste, Italy; post-war Kosovo and Albania (as WHO Representative); and technical leadership at PAHO in the Caribbean and Washington, DC. Since 2019, she has served as Director of Mental Health, Brain Health and Substance Use at WHO.
Professor Hanna Kienzler
Professor of Global Health, King’s College London
Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health
Professor Hanna Kienzler is a medical anthropologist whose research focuses on mental health in contexts of systemic violence, ethnic conflict, and humanitarian crises. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Kosovo, Palestine, and the MENA region.
She leads two major international projects on mental health and justice (Wellcome Trust) and health in conflict (GCRF), and previously held academic positions at McGill University. Her work combines ethnography with global health policy analysis, with a particular focus on lived experience, trauma, and social suffering.
Dr Cristian Montenegro
Principal Investigator, Transitions Project
Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Global Health & Social Medicine, KCL
Cristian Montenegro is a medical sociologist and global health scholar whose work explores the role of service-user knowledge and the intellectual contributions of the Global South to mental health policy. He was previously a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and Assistant Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His research spans participatory mental health, critical global health, and mental health systems reform in the global south.
Dr Felipe Szabzon
Postdoctoral Researcher, Transitions Project (Brazil)
Researcher at CEBRAP and CULTMIND (University of Copenhagen)
Felipe Szabzon is a psychologist and interdisciplinary researcher with a PhD in Health and Welfare Dynamics (NOVA/EHESS). He is affiliated with the Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP) and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo.
His work focuses on mental health systems, psychiatric reform, and the politics of care in Latin America. Felipe combines policy analysis with ethnographic research to explore state practices, citizenship, and institutional change.
Dr Sofía Bowen
Postdoctoral Researcher, Transitions Project (Chile)
Sofía Bowen is a medical anthropologist with a PhD from King’s College London. She has conducted fieldwork on mental and occupational health in Chile, focusing on the lived experience of distress, medico-bureaucratic power, and institutional responses to harm.
She has taught anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and worked in interdisciplinary teams on public health. Her work examines how suffering is recognised and contested within psychiatric and bureaucratic systems.
At this event
Senior Lecturer in Critical Global Health
Professor of Global Health
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