Tine Schellekens

Tine works as a postdoctoral researcher on the FWO funded EXIDEP-project. In this project, we research the experiences of existential suffering (meaninglessness, existential loneliness) in nursing home residents.

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In her PhD research, Tine investigated the psychological understanding and experience of grace, in an interdisciplinary collaboration between psychology (Prof. Dezutter) and theology (Prof. Dillen). In line with other constructs (e.g., forgiveness, humility) and framed within a psychological approach, grace was studied as a state (feelings or experiences of grace) and as a trait/tendency (openness to experience grace). Tine uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including self-report questionnaires, web based tools and in-depth interviews. She is interested in the lay conceptualization of grace and the delineated psychological experience of grace. Furthermore, she is interested in existential psychology, posttraumatic growth and conceptualizations of self and other.

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Previously, she had worked for over a decade as a clinical psychologist and therapist in a foster care service and in a Multifunctional Centre for children, adolescents and families with severe emotional and behavioural problems. She is a counselor in systemic and relational therapy (License, Kern, 2006). She further specialized in psychodynamic psychotherapy (Postgraduate KU Leuven, 2016). She combines her research work with a private therapeutic practice (Psychodroom, Hasselt) and some teaching about traumasensitive care in Rapunzel vzw (Diest). Characteristic of her approach is a co-creative search for ways to obtain more freedom and choice based on the life expertise of the client themself.  She obtained her master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from KU Leuven in July 2004.