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Our Team International
Our International Team
ISMA is currently represented in seven countries around the world. Our international branches and international members operate autonomously and promote stress management and prevention across the globe. Members include health professionals, academics and researchers.
ISMA also welcomes international members to the ISMAUK branch. Further information about this can be obtained by contacting Carole Spiers, Chair of ISMA International and Chair of ISMAUK a chair@isma.org.uk
International Events
ISMA International branches and members also run their own events. Further information is available on the International Events page here.
International Branches
ISMAUK
ISMAUK promotes sound knowledge in the prevention and reduction of human stress and actively promotes best practice in the field of stress management through our membership, both nationally and internationally. With branches in eight countries, ISMAUK has a global reach, hosting International Stress Awareness Week annually.
Carole Spiers FISMA FPSA MIHPE
Chair
Carole is Chair of the International Stress Management AssociationUK, Chair of ISMA International, and founder of International Stress Awareness Week. She is a well-respected authority on building resilience and communication skills, a BBC guest broadcaster and author of Show Stress Who’s Boss! and Tolley’s Managing Stress in the Workplace. Carole is an international motivational speaker, regularly called upon by the press and media for comment.
+ 44 782 374 5056
ISMA Australia
The ISMA Australian branch committee is currently located in Western Australia. We are actively seeking new members from across Australia, to complete the executive function on a national basis. We are focused on supporting our membership in dealing with contemporary stress issues, managing them, and providing tools for identifying and coping with stress in the corporate setting. We are also involved in disseminating evidence-based educational information through our quarterly newsletters. Our branch is committed to supporting members with a wide range of vocations and interests. Full, affiliate and student memberships are available. Enquiries are welcomed
Ian Shakespeare BSc, MBA
Chair
Ian is an experienced mental health professional who has worked in the health industry across Australia and the Asia Pacific for nearly 30 years. Now Director of his own consulting business Shakespeare Consulting Pty, he has worked as a psychologist, educator, trainer, and facilitator and been CEO of a major international EAP company. Ian has presented at conferences in Australia and internationally. He has also contributed to the International EAP Compendium 2024.
+61419826079
ISMA Pacific and Oceania
ISMA is currently expanding in the Pacific and Oceania region. A new branch now exists in Australia and a national executive is being formed. We welcome expressions of interest from individuals who would like to help create new branches in Japan and New Zealand. Individuals from other countries in the Oceania region are invited to contact Veronica Connaughton to discuss the formation of branches in their local area.
Veronica Connaughton BSc BBehSc (Psych), BPsych (Hons)
Director, ISMA Pacific and Oceania; Regional Chair, Australia-Japan-New Zealand
Veronica is a nationally registered psychologist, experienced in individual stress management techniques and stress reduction in the workplace. She has over 35 years’ involvement with ISMA and has spent 40 years in medical health education. Her interests include progressive relaxation, logos therapy, ikigai, rogerian psychology, traditional Japanese stress management, hikikomori syndrome, vocational rehabilitation, and biofeedback. Veronica is a published author who is also interested in mindfulness, complex stress disorders, and flourishing in the 21st century.
+61418772377
ISMA Austria
Currently, we are getting ISMA Austria connected with the University, to reinvigorate the Austrian branch of ISMA. The goal is to bring a master study to life - an online study for the University of Salutology, one version in German and another one that will connect with our international branches and bring diversity into the field. This is a work in progress and we are looking forward to bringing it to fruition.
Dr Ingrid Pirker-Binder MA, PhD
Chair
Ingrid is a certified expert in psychotherapy and writes on biofeedback and prevention of burnout. She has MA degrees in international business and educational sciences and a PhD in psychotherapy science. Her current research involves meaning-oriented business, occupational psychotherapy and counselling. She heads the Department of PsychoSalutology, University of Salutology, Germany, with the main focus on stress management, resilience, and psychotherapy.
+43 (0) 067 6704 7668
Ana Maria Rossi PhD
Chair
Ana Maria is Chair of ISMA Brazil, co-chair of the Section on Occupational Psychiatry of WPA and director of the Clinica de Stress & Biofeedback. She is a Fellow of The American Institute of Stress (AIS) and is the pioneer of self-control and biofeedback techniques in Brazil
+ 55 51 3222 2441
ISMA France
Through a direct collaboration with the UNESCO Chair towards a culture of economic peace, ISMA France promotes sound knowledge in the transformation of the economic model toward a more peaceable version of economics. The main research themes are inner peace, inter-relational peace and economic peace. The prevention and reduction of human stress is actively promoted through those three research axes.
Dr Dominique Steiler
Chair
Dr Steiler is Director of the Endowed Chair in Mindfulness, Wellbeing at Work and Economic Peace at Grenoble Ecole de Management. He was previously a research scholar at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ.
+33 4 76 70 60 09
ISMA Netherlands
ISMA Netherlands was founded in 1993, with the aim of preparing the fifth international ISMA congress. Netherlands wishes to contribute to the recognition of effective and high-quality methods of stress management. Its members are an interdisciplinary network of people professionally employed in research and stress treatment
Dr Heilwine A.H.M. Bakker
Chair
Heilwine is a health psychologist and founded Balans & Impuls. She has been working in healthcare and wellbeing since 1997, mainly supporting and teaching emergency services employees, developing tools which have been documented in several publications. She has completed PhD research on the impact on people’s lives of doing emergency services work, and has developed a practical course of mental first aid training, available in Dutch and English.
+31 70-3922261
Dr Ani Etokidem
Chair
Dr Etokidem is Lecturer and Chief Consultant Physician (Public Health and Community Medicine), Department of Community Medicine, University of Calabar and University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar. He is also the former Sub-Dean, Faculty of Medicine Team Lead, Health Research Committee, Directorate of Research and Development at the University of Calabar. Dr Etokidem has been active in stress management for over ten years.
+23 4 803822 7878
https://www.unical.edu.ng/staff/user/profile-aniekanetokidem
Italy
Dr Pier Michele Mandrillo
Pier is a Professor at the Universities of Foggia, Chieti and Tor Vergata Rome and has a Masters degree in Behavioural Neuroscience. He diagnoses and treats neurodegenerative diseases. He has codified Synaesthesica Medicine©, a synaesthetic treatment enhancing wellbeing and alleviating stress symptoms, and created FM 5 Sensory, which increases endorphins production by stimulating the five senses. Pier established the Italian Medical De-stress Clinic and coordinates the Italian Synaesthetic Doctors Group. Pier is an ISMAUK Ambassador.
For details of the seventh Italy Stress Awareness Day, see Events page.
+39 3487660064
Spain
Carolina Caparrós Alvarez
Carolina is an organisational labour lawyer and Co-founder, Bienestar Hub.
She was the first female employment lawyer at Garrigues, a corporate law firm. She has acted as HR director and on management committees of large multinationals, responsible for occupational risk prevention and psychological wellbeing. She has over 20 years’ teaching experience and, since 2017, has been an honorary coach and teacher at the University of Almeria.
+34 671 625 098
India
Dr. B. Udaya Kumar Reddy
Dr Kumar Reddy is CEO of Stress Management Lab Pvt. Ltd. He pioneered organisational stress audits, stress coaching, stress counselling and stress management policies in the workplace in India. Dr Udaya chairs annual international conferences on stress management.
+91 9701736007
Professor Stephen Palmer PhD CPsychol CSci CBiol FISMA
Immediate Past President
Stephen is Professor of Practice at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Adjunct Professor of Coaching Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has represented ISMA at national and international conferences since joining in 1987. He is an award-winning chartered psychologist, chartered scientist and chartered biologist. Stephen is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and Honorary Fellow of both ISMA and the Institute for Health Promotion and Education. He is Founder Director of the Centre for Stress Management and the Centre for Coaching, London. Stephen has written and edited 60 books and published over 325 articles and book chapters on topics including stress management, resilience and wellbeing.
Professor Lennart Levi, 1930 - 2024
Professor Levi, a Past President and friend of ISMA who has passed away recently, was Professor of Psychosocial Medicine 1978 – 95, and Emeritus Professor at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. He was Founder and Director of the Stress Research Institute at Karolinska Institutet 1959-95 and the National Swedish Institute for Psychosocial Medicine (IPM) 1980 – 95. He was also a member of the WHO Expert Panel on Mental Health 1973 – 96, temporary advisor/consultant to WHO, ILO, and UNICEF 1972-2015 and to the European Commission 1993-2015. From 2006-10 he was also a member of the Swedish Parliament for the Centre Party. Professor Levi, a truly compassionate and kind individual, will be deeply missed.
Watch this video of Professor Levi talking about issues affecting occupational health, the promotion of wellbeing, and adding UN Sustainable Goals to higher education curricula.
