Hans Ormel, born in Wageningen, the Netherlands, in 1946. Ph.D. from the University of Groningen. Professor of Social Psychiatry at the University of Groningen.
Fellow (1 September 2002 – 31 January 2003)
My objective for my five-month fellowship at NIAS was twofold: Firstly, to develop a comprehensive theory of the aetiology of depression – using the Dynamic Stress-Vulnerability (DSV) paradigm, Social Production Function (SPF) heuristics and evolutionary insights on psychopathology; secondly, to derive, from this theory, a series of hypotheses that can be tested in prospective longitudinal studies. Since my literature study at NIAS revealed that the common forms of psychopathology can be represented by a two-dimensional structure of internalizing (INT, e.g. depression) and externalizing (EXT, e.g. antisocial behaviour) symptoms and disorders, I decided to extend the depression focus to include these two broad dimensions of psychopathology. This work has also contributed to the adaptation and extension of the TRAILS study (and the NWO research application required to fund this extended study); as well as provided material for two papers on the effects of depression on personality and psychosocial functioning. In addition, I gave two international and two Dutch presentations during my fellowship.