Liesbet Goubert
Liesbet Goubert is Full Professor of Clinical Health Psychology in the Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium. She completed her PhD in 2004, in which she focussed on the role of psychosocial risk factors for the development of chronic low back pain (e.g., fear). In the last decade, she shifted her main research focus to the investigation of interpersonal dynamics of (chronic) pain and chronic illness. She has published numerous studies on the role of others (e.g., parents, health care providers, partners) in the context of paediatric and adult pain. More recently, she became interested in the study of psychosocial resilience mechanisms that may account for the sustainment of adaptive functioning and well-being in the presence of pain.
She developed, together with (inter)national colleagues, different theoretical models on the role of the social context in chronic conditions which have been published in high-impact journals (e.g., Goubert et al., PAIN, 2005; Hadjistavropoulos et al., Psychological Bulletin, 2011) and books (e.g., Oxford Textbook of Paediatric Pain). Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with several scientific awards, including the IASP-SIG Early Career Award in Pediatric Pain, the EFIC Grünenthal Grant Award, and the Prize "Institut Belge de la Douleur-UPSA-Belgisch Pijninstituut. In 2017, she received the British Pain Society Medal in recognition for her outstanding contributions to the clinical science of pain.
She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Belgian Pain Society (Belgian IASP Chapter) from 2006-2012. Since 2008, she is an international collaborator of the Strategic Training Program on Pain in Child Health (PICH) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She is a Council member of the IASP Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood (2018 – 2023) and a member of the IASP/EFIC taskforce “Pain in the most vulnerable”. She has been the scientific chair of different international conferences, including the 11th International Symposium on Pediatric Pain (July 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and the European Pediatric Psychology Conference (September 2018, Ghent, Belgium).
Next to her academic activities, she also works as a clinical psychologist within a multidisciplinary primary care setting in De Pinte, Belgium. On a personal level, she is the mother of two (grown-up) children.
Interests
- Pediatric and adult pain
- Resilience
- The role of the social network surrounding the patient with chronic pain or illness (health care providers, parents, partners, friends, family)
- Stigma and chronic pain
- Empathy
- Psychological flexibility
- Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Meet the team
Meet our enthousiastic and lively team of professors, post-doctoral researchers, phd students and research assistants
Fleur Baert
Fleur graduated as a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology at Ghent University.
Maya Braun
Maya obtained her Master of Science in Clinical Psychology at Ghent University. After collecting experience in different areas of psychology during her student jobs, internships and theses, she joined the Health Psychology Lab of Ghent University as a doctoral student
Geert Crombez
Geert Crombez is Professor of Health Psychology in the Department of Experimental-Health Psychology at Ghent University.
Marie De Breucker
I obtained my Master of Science in Theoretical and Experimental Psychology at Ghent University in 2021. During my six month research internship at the Ghent Experimental Psychiatry Lab, where I investigated an attentional bias to food in patients with anorexia nervosa, my interest in research was further enhanced, especially involving clinical populations.
