Womens Health & Reproductive Medicine

Biography

Assistant professor Vislava Globevnik Velikonja has been working in the field of psychology and psychopathology of the reproductive period for three decades. She is employed at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana’s Division of Gynaecology and Obstetrics as a specialist in clinical psychology. After completing her undergraduate studies of psychology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana in 1987, she completed her specialisation in clinical psychology at the Medical Faculty in Ljubljana in 1993. As a junior researcher she was involved in research work and in 1994 finished her doctorate at the University of Ljubljana in the field of a preventive program for reducing consequences of premature birth for prematurely born babies and their parents at the Neonate Intensive Care Unit. In 1994 she completed a 4-year training program in Experiental Family Therapy and in 2008 the Masterclass Gestalt Experiental Psychotherapy at the Kempler Institute in the Netherlands. In addition to her clinical work, where she expands the field of healthcare psychology to the field of gynaecology and obstetrics in Slovenia, she is also active in the research and pedagogical field. She was first elected to the title of an assistant professor in 1996. As a lecturer and mentor she is also involved in pedagogical work for students of psychology, medicine, nursing and midwifery, and trainee in clinical psychology, gynaecology and obstetrics, and paediatrics. She presents her research and professional work at home and abroad at international conferences and congresses. She is the representative of Slovenia in ISPOG - International Society for Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and is active in various professional associations and was repeatedly elected to the Committee for Medical Ethics at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana, has already been an appointed member of the State Professional Board of Clinical Psychology at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia, a member of the Management Board of the Chamber of Clinical Psychologists and the first President of the Slovenian Society for Psychosomatics in Gynaecology and a member of the Management Board of the Institute for Family Therapy. She was the co-founder of the Society for the Help of Prematurely Born Children and its first president. She started a nationwide movement to humanize the procedures that accompany perinatal deaths, education of the professional and lay public and improving professional help for grieving parents. She is currently in charge of introducing screening for depression, addiction, and violence against women in the perinatal period in Slovenia and is involved in the education of a network of psychologists and psychiatrists in Slovenia for a better-quality treatment of women with mental disorders in the perinatal period.

Research Interest

Psychology, Psychopathology, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Nursing and Midwifery,