Pau Pérez-Sales

Pau Perez-Sales is a psychiatrist and director of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid's Post-Doctoral Degree in Mental Health in Political Violence and Catastrophe. He is also affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry Hospital La Paz in Madrid and Director of SiR[a], Centre for research, forensic documentation and rehabilitation of ill-treatment and torture victims.

Education
Pau Perez-Sales holds a degree in medicine at the University of Barcelona and did a speciality in psychiatry at Hospital La Paz, Madrid, In 1994, he received his PhD in Psychiatry from the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Research and career
Pau Pérez-Sales is a former Chair of the Section on Psychological Consequences of Persecution and Torture of the World Psychiatric Association. He has conducted extensive research on the operational application of scientific research on torture and psychological torture. He defined the concept of "torturing Environments" and developed a set of tools to quantify and study them.

He worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization, the Inter Agency Standing Committee group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings , MH-GAP Intervention Guide Rapid Assessment in Emergencies Program and coordinated MHPSS programs for Doctors of the World and Mediciens Sans Frontier.

His other research interests include psychotherapy in individual and community trauma, transcultural psychiatry, post-traumatic factors, and resilience. He developed the VIVO Questionnaire as an integrative tool for assessing the impact of traumatic experiences on identity and worldviews and has trained and led research in more than 20 countries.

With more than 20 years of professional experience, Pau Pérez-Sales played a key role in the Liberation Psychology movement in Latin America, living and working in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, Chile and Colombia  working with community-based organizations and authoring a wide range of books and articles related to enforced disappearances, exhumation of mass graves and policies of truth and reparation.

Memberships
Pau Perez-Sales is Editor-in-Chief of Torture and former Associate Editor of Intervention International Journal of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Conflict-Affected Areas.

Published books

 * (2022).
 * (2021).
 * (2020).
 * (2016).
 * (2016).
 * (2013).
 * (2009).
 * (2007).
 * (2006).
 * (2004).
 * (2001).
 * (1999).
 * (1999).
 * (1999).
 * (1998).