Open lecture: "Complex trauma in serious mental illness: The forgotten perspective. Impact on emotional development and clinical prognosis"
Dr Soledad Romero Cela is a psychiatrist and researcher at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology of Children and Youth of the Clinical Hospital of the University of Barcelona (Servei de Psiquiatria i Psicologia Infantil i Juvenil Hospital Clínic de Barcelona). Dr Romero is the author of numerous scientific publications focusing on the topic of early childhood trauma and its impact on the development of mental illness and disorders.
Dr Soledad Romero obtained her medical degree from the Department of Medicine at the University of La Laguna in San Cristobal de La Laguna, Spain. In June 2005, she completed her specialisation in psychiatry at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona. She began her research career during an internship at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, studying the field of bipolar affective disorder in children and adolescents. At the time, Dr Romero's research concerned the incidence of affective disorder in children and the correlation of the clinical manifestation of the disorder with the experience of childhood violence. Dr Romero was awarded her doctoral degree in 2014. Her doctoral dissertation entitled "Sexual and Physical Abuse and Negative Life Events in Children and Adolescents with Bipolar Disorder" received an award from the University of Barcelona Medical School.
Dr Romero continued her scientific work as a project leader involving research on the clinical, neuroimaging and neurocognitive characteristics of adolescents with bipolar I or II affective disorder. Moreover, she also remained involved in a long-term prospective study, examining the offspring of parents, with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, for deviations in medical neuro-imaging tests, psychopathology, cognitive processes and genetics.