Biography

With more than 20 years of experience as a trauma expert, I carry with me countless stories of people in distress. Many therapy sessions, interventions, exercises and outcomes - good and less successful - are etched in my memory. About my field, I wrote a book, Getting Stronger Where It Hurts, which incorporates these stories.

I have worked in many different contexts, with various kinds of trauma: people chased by their past, survivors of child abuse, refugees and asylum seekers, victims of accidents and crimes, the victims of the terrorist attacks in Brussels.

Today, I provide trauma and victim assistance training: to my fellow aid workers, from midwives to psychologists, from emergency service workers to HR managers and boards of NGOs and corporations.

I graduated in moral science, attended the 4-year integrative psychotherapy course, trained as a family mediator, specialized in constellations and psychotraumatology. I am a guest lecturer at the post-graduate course in psychotraumatology at the VUB (Free University of Brussels); former member of the Board of Directors of the BIP (Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology), recognized supervisor, member of the ESTSS (European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies) and I have an ECP accreditation (European Certificate Psychotherapy). Spring 2022 I became a member of the Advisory Board of TraumaNet.

Ybe Casteleyn
IDM Photography

Sterker worden waar het pijn doet (also in English: The Healing Power of Pain - order the English copy on Amazon.com)

A book for people with scratches on their souls.

Ever read something that lingers? A book that makes you think? A book that makes you ... feel? 'Sterker worden waar het pijn doet' is such a book. Not an ordinary self-help book, nor a textbook, but a feeling and doing book about trauma.

A book that helps you understand and ease your and others' pain. A book that helps you "get stronger where it hurts.

 

Blog

End-of-year greetings 2024 / Goodbye to 2024

To everyone: the year is almost at an end; my work is completed - for the moment 🙂 it was, as always, beautiful, busy, fun, emotional. So much seen, told, learned to/from/with colleagues. Thanks to all of you! Wishing you a wonderful end to this year and very happy 2025! Until next year x Ybe

Background info provided for TV series

Fun and interesting conversation earlier this week: with a director and a screenwriter; they are working on a fiction series for TV, in which trauma plays an important role. Both of them had a lot of good questions, which I hope I was able to help them with from my experience. It is still "work in progress" for them, so I may continue to...

Ybe on Gina Gardiner's podcast: December 5th

The podcast with Gina Gardiner will be broadcasted on December 5th! I spoke with her in July on the Gina Gardiner and Friends Show. Topics: my book The Healing Power of Pain and many more things - all concerning trauma, of course 🙂 -.