As a professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry and licensed clinical psychologist/psychotherapist at Amsterdam University Medical Centers at the University of Amsterdam https://interventionlab.nl/ , my research focuses on improving interventions for common mental health disorders, mostly interdisciplinary. I study interdisciplinary potentially modifiable factors of onset, maintenance, recurrence, and chronicity using a complex systems approach. I am one of the co-founders and directors of the interdisciplinary https://www.centreforurbanmentalhealth.com/ (largest research priority area of the University of Amsterdam (UvA)), and since 2025 of ‘Shaping interfaces between science and the public’ https://shapinginterfaces.uva.nl/. As a former fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the UvA I studied the use of complex systems models to explore new targets for prevention, treatment, and relapse prevention of mental disorders. Additionally, as a former fellow at the World Health Organization (WHO), I studied the possibilities of using technology (such as chatbots) to increase the accessibility of effective psychological interventions worldwide.
My research programme focuses on the following issues:
1) Understanding etiological, maintenance, and relapse factors in depression, anxiety and other recurring mental health problems like suicidality, taking a life-course approach, using a complex systems approach.
2) Developing innovative multimodal psychological interventions (using technology such as apps and AI) and evaluating the effect in RCT’s and micro RCT’s (using ecological momentary assessment and affective networks).
3) Increasing accessibility of effective psychological interventions in low- and middle-income
countries using technology (part of visiting professorship Harvard University).
4) Interdisciplinary research projects that focus on societal and scientific challenges;
a) women's mental health science, with a specific focus on preventing the transgenerational transmission of mental health conditions from parents to offspring. Large-scale national trials including PROMISES (Pregnancy Outcomes after a Maternity Intervention for Stressful Emotions) and Stop or Go? (tapering antidepressants during pregnancy), I have led this line of research for over two decades, combining clinical psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, gynecology and midwifery, and primary care to identify and interrupt the pathways by which parental depression and anxiety are passed on to the next generation. My leading position in this field rests on this sustained, continuously funded (ZonMW/NWO) programme of work and the international cohort of PhD researchers it has trained, now extending this research line to low-and-middle-income countries (Rwanda and Indonesia).
b) Responsible use of AI and digitalisation at IAS University of Amsterdam and IAS Paris and the impact on science and human well-being and mental health (WHO fellowship)
c) Policy making national and European (as past president/current board member, EACLIPT).
Preventive Cognitive Therapy for Depression
An Evidence-Based Approach to Reduce Relapse Risk
Learn about preventive cognitive therapy (PCT), a rigorously tested 8-week program shown to sustain recovery from depression. This book is an in-depth overview of the method, how to implement it in individual or group sessions, how it compares to other therapeutic methods and how to overcome common roadblocks in therapy.
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Together with Prof. Dr. Reinout Wiers and Dr. Harm Krugers, Claudi is the director of the Centre for Urban Mental Health , part of the University of Amsterdam. The centre aims to unravel new pathways to improve urban mental health that takes into account the complexities and dynamics of mental health problems and mental health disorders in an urban environment.
Centre for Urban Mental Health
Claudi is the Chair of the Academic Collaborative Centre ‘Shift Left’, whose mission is to develop interventions both within and outside mental health care. The centre focuses on the prevention, early treatment and relapse prevention of psychological problems and disorders (such as anxiety, depression, suicidality). The Arkin Mental Health Innovation Lab focuses on personalised E-health, the use of the social domain in interventions (such as community workers) and the promotion of social connection.
Academic Workplace Shift Left
European Association of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment
To promote innovation in the field of clinical psychology and innovate interventions and to represent clinical psychology in Europe on a policy level, Claudi has led the European Association of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment (EACLIPT). EACLIPT aims to foster research, education, and dissemination of scientifically evaluated findings on mental disorders and their treatment. Such efforts resulted in representation of the EACLIPT in the European Parliament in the last years.
Policy and Advice
On a national policy level, Claudi is a member of the advisory board of the Dutch government (kennisring Raad voor Samenleving) and a member of the multi-disciplinary clinical guideline committee on Depression for more than a decade.