2021 Winner

Professor Michaela Amering was selected by the members of the jury as the winner of the EPA Constance Pascal – Helen Boyle Prize of €10,000 for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in Working to Improve Mental Health Care in Europe for 2021!

Prof. Amering is a psychiatrist and Professor at the Division of Social Psychiatry of the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. The main focus of her clinical, teaching and research activities is on the situation of persons with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and their families and friends. She is a proponent of the concept and practice of ‘Trialogue’, a setting which allows communication and collaboration on equal footing between people with a lived experience of mental health problems, their families and friends, and mental health professionals, generating a specific and independent form of acquisition and production of knowledge.

Michaela Amering remains an active member of the EPA Section on Women, Gender and Mental Health, and served on the Section’s Committee for many years. Gender has been her longstanding research interest in terms of both clinical significance and policy implications as well as highlighting the situation of women in academic psychiatry.

Her book ‘Recovery in Mental Health: Reshaping Scientific and Clinical Responsibilities’ was one of the first monographs on a topic with rapidly growing international impact, and she and her co-author Margit Schmolke received the 2010 Medical Journalists’ Association Open Book Award for specialist readership.

Michaela Amering is a frequent speaker and organizer at international conferences. Her more than 150 publications consist of papers in mostly peer-reviewed journals, books and book chapters. Her professional experience includes work in research and community psychiatry in the USA, the UK, Germany and Ireland as well as involvement in international organisations such as the European Psychiatric Association (EPA), the World Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation (WAPR) and the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), where she enjoys Honorary Membership as a Fellow. She is a board member of the Austrian Association of Social Psychiatry, recipient of the 2020 Austrian Award for Innovation in Social Psychiatry, and an Honorary Fellow of the European Society of Social Psychiatry (ESSP) as well as of the World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP).

The EPA warmly congratulates Prof. Amering on this well-deserved distinction, which recognises her exceptional contribution towards better mental health care in Europe.