Jakov developed the Bochum SALUS project together with Matthé and directs the research group, coordinating and supervising all subprojects. As a psychiatrist and clinical ethicist, he brings clinical experience and psychiatric and ethical expertise to the research group. He is involved in designing and carrying out quantitative and qualitative empirical studies as well as in analyzing the data and interpreting the results.

Jakov studied medicine and philosophy in Mainz, Bern and Bochum and was a visiting scholar at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. He coordinates the working group “Ethics in Psychiatry” at the Academy for Ethics in Medicine (AEM) and is a member of the commission “Ethics and Law” of the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (DGPPN) and the institutional review board of the medical faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum.

His research interests include coercion in psychiatry, psychiatric advance directives, competence to consent, and ethical aspects of research with persons under involuntary commitment.

Matthé developed and co-directs the Bochum SALUS project together with Jakov. Being trained as a philosopher, his primary task within the SALUS project is to analyze and clarify current debates about coercion in psychiatry from a conceptual and ethical perspective and to identify empirical assumptions in those debates for further empirical research. In addition, he is involved in designing and carrying out various empirical bioethics studies as well as in analyzing the data and interpreting the results.

Matthé received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Amsterdam and was a visiting scholar amongst others at UC Berkeley, the University of Tokyo and the National Institutes of Health. Alongside his BA and MA studies at the University of Amsterdam, he worked as an auxiliary nurse in a rehabilitation center.

His research interests include competence to consent, coercion in psychiatry, research ethics, mental health law and psychiatric advance directives.

Sarah works as a postdoc on the SALUS project. She is primarily responsible for designing and carrying out the qualitative subproject on the use of treatment pressures in psychiatry. Within the SALUS project, she offers consultation for the design and analysis of qualitative studies.

Sarah received a PhD in sociology from the University of Bielefeld. She was an associate at the New Delhi Institute of Social Sciences and spent several months in India and the Philippines for field research. Before joining the SALUS research group, she was as lecturer and as researcher at the social sciences department of the Ruhr University Bochum. Alongside her master’s studies in sociology and literature, she worked as a student assistant in a residential home for persons with mental disorders and epilepsy.

Her research interests include qualitative methodology, research ethics, socio and legal studies, and coercion in psychiatry.

Astrid is a physician and works as a researcher at the Institute of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine. Her primary research focus within the SALUS project is the use of advance directives in psychiatry. The research methods she uses include conceptual and normative analysis as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods. She currently works on a systematic literature review on self-binding directives.

Astrid studied medicine and received a BA in philosophy and history from the University of Münster in Germany, where she recently submitted her medical dissertation on psychiatrists’ attitudes towards advance directives in psychiatry. She is a member of the institutional review board of the medical faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum.

Her research focus in on advance directives in psychiatry, decision-making for persons who are unable to consent and research ethics.  

Laura’s focus within the SALUS project is on self-binding directives in psychiatry. Working both at the Institute of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine of the Ruhr University Bochum and the Department of Medical Humanities of the Amsterdam University Medical Centre, her aim is to promote collaboration between these institutions in various projects on coercion in psychiatry.

Laura currently finishes a PhD project on the implementation of High and Intensive Care (HIC) in Dutch mental health care at the Amsterdam University Medical Centre. She is a trained facilitator Moral Case Deliberation and previously worked as a psychologist at an acute inpatient psychiatric ward at GGZ Breburg and at the 113 Online suicide prevention center.

Her research focus is on care ethics in both ambulatory and clinical care and on interventions and treatment concepts to reduce coercion. 

Simone is working as a PhD candidate in the SALUS project and assists Jakov Gather with the administration of the SALUS research group. As a psychologist she brings along expertise in quantitative (and qualitative) empirical research, therefore she is primarily involved in the conceptualization, conduction and especially statistical analysis and interpretation of various studies within the SALUS project. Furthermore, she contributes to conceptual debates on coercion in psychiatry from a psychological point of view.

Simone has studied at the Paris Lodron University Salzburg and the Ruhr University Bochum where she received a MSc in clinical psychology and a MA in criminology and police science. Currently, she is working on her PhD in psychology.Since school and alongside her studies she has worked in several (mental) health contexts, such as inpatient and outpatient care for persons with (mental) disabilities.

Her research interests mainly include staff attitudes and decision-making processes towards the use of, the role of police in coercion against (mentally ill) people, mental health law and police law, treatment concepts in psychiatry (esp. open-door policies) and the prevalence and conditions of coercive measures.

Anna works as a research assistant in the SALUS project in Bochum and supports the team members in carrying out empirical studies and data analysis as well as preparing publications. She also assumes administrative and organizational tasks.

Anna holds a Diploma in Molecular Biomedicine from the University of Bonn. During her studies, she spent six months at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. She is a trained EX-IN peer support worker and brings her experience as a peer scientist to the SALUS team. Alongside her work in the SALUS project, she studies medicine at the Ruhr University of Bochum.

Her interests include peer support work, participatory research, coercion in psychiatry and psychiatric advance directives.

Marleen works in the SALUS project as an MD student and a student assistant. In collaboration with other SALUS team members, she will carry out focus groups with service users, mental health professionals and other stakeholders on the opportunities and risks of self-binding directives. As a student assistant, she supports the SALUS team with administrative and organizational tasks.

Marleen studies medicine at the Ruhr University Bochum. She developed an interest in medical ethical questions in the course of her studies and internships and gained insight in another health care system and broadened her perspective on medical ethical issues during an exchange stay at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

As a student assistant in the SALUS project, Christin primarily works within the qualitative-empirical subproject on the views of service users and relatives on treatment pressures in psychiatry.

Christin studies medicine at Hannover Medical School as well as philosophy and political science at Leibniz University Hannover. As part of her philosophy degree, she spent one semester at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.