Emotion dynamics are key to mental health and well-being. Emotion regulation and their underlying processes are the overarching theme of the ICPE. Psychopathology and trauma are often defined by the frequency and types of emotions we experience, which color how we perceive our worlds.

Mood problems include anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms and disorders. Mood problems are highly prevalent in the general population. Key questions include how moods emerge and evolve over the life-course, what their underlying processes are, and why they are often so persistent.

We differ in what we feel, think, want and do (personality) and how we feel and think about our lives (subjective well-being). Personality captures our needs and predicts all important life outcomes, including the contexts, jobs, friends, and partners we choose. Your personality can be both a strength and a vulnerability.

Most problems are people problems. Development takes place in various social contexts including families, schools, friendships, sport, and work. We study development across all levels from lifespan and developmental stages to the micro-timescale. Healthy ageing and resilience starts with babies and ends at old age, but is always social.

Somatic complaints and disease are very common and often co-morbid with psychopathology (e.g., heart disease, asthma, diabetes). About half of the patients in somatic and mental health care report medially unexplained somatic symptoms (MUPS). We study the close links between these somatic problems and emotion (de)regulation and psychopathology.

Thought problems include a set of prominent cognitive-perceptual and affect regulation disturbances that are marked by idiosyncratic perceptions ("hallucinations"), deviant beliefs ("delusions"), and impaired capacity to sustain coherent discourse. Thought problems are quite common in the general population and can flair up temporary or develop into a full-blown disorder such as psychosis.