Background

Martial Van der Linden obtained his degree in psychology at the University of Liège in 1975. From 1975 to 1988, he worked at the University Hospital Centre of Liège, as a clinical neuropsychologist in a surgery aiming to evaluate and revalidate cognitive deficits in patients (children and adults) who were victims of cerebral lesions. In 1988, he defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Liège the theme of which was the assessment of mnemonic disorders. He then obtained a position of associate researcher at the National Scientific Research Fund (FNRS).

He was named head of the course at the faculty of psychology and education science at the University of Liège in 1993, then professor in 1997. Since 1999, Martial Van der Linden has been professor of clinical psychology at the University of Geneva and senior professor at the University of liege. At Geneva and Liège he directs a research group (The psychopathology and cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive psychopathology sector respectively) specialised in the study of cognitive and emotional disorders. He is also responsible for a clinic devoted to the evaluation and treatment of emotional disorders. Finally, he is currently joint director of the Swiss centre for emotional sciences (PRN).

The research of Martial Van der Linden aims to better understand the contribution of cognitive dysfunctions to the development and persistence of certain psychopathological states, such as schizophrenia, depression, anti-social behaviour, alcoholism, eating disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In this context, he has coordinated a Treatise of Cognitive Psychopathology with Grazia Ceschi, which appeared in 2008, published by Solal. He is also interested in the relations between memory, emotion, and «self» (self-awareness). He particularly examines how emotions, goals and beliefs of a person can, in certain cases, transform them and lead to false memories.

Moreover, his work leans towards the organisation and functioning of different systems of memory and the recollection of memories as well as their underlying cerebral basis, and by means of the exploration of patients presenting mnemonic deficiencies following a cerebral lesion (amnesiac and Alzheimer patients). Finally. part of his research is devoted to the development of methods of revalidation of memory disorders and attentional control as well as methods of psychological interventions for sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease.