Key Takeaways
At the intersection of clinical psychology and academic research, Anna Muntingh represents a new generation of professionals shaping mental-health care in the Netherlands.
Through her work at GGZ inGeest and Amsterdam UMC, she bridges treatment, research, and institutional transparency.
Her professional environment reflects how collaboration between clinics and universities transforms mental-health practice into a living network of care, ethics, and discovery.
Story & Details
A Dual Anchor: Practice and Research
Anna Muntingh works as a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist (PhD) within the Dutch mental-health organisation GGZ inGeest and its academic partner Amsterdam UMC.
Her career spans two complementary settings:
— Zuiderpoort Clinic in Haarlem, leading treatment for anxiety and mood disorders.
— Oldenaller Research Site in Amsterdam, contributing to the Academic Workplace Anxiety, a hub combining therapy innovation with research.
This dual rhythm — clinical care on some days, academic study on others — connects science and the lived experience of therapy.
The PADOLA Study
Among Muntingh’s projects is the PADOLA Study, a long-term investigation into anxiety and mood dynamics.
It is maintained by an integrated team including Bibi Schut, PhD candidate at Amsterdam UMC, and Ilja Saris, acting principal investigator at GGZ inGeest.
The project shows how academic research can evolve within treatment environments rather than in isolation, ensuring that findings return directly to clinical practice.
Ethics as Structure
Every institutional detail surrounding this work reflects a culture of ethical clarity.
Public phone lines, direct e-mail addresses, and stated office hours make help accessible.
A transparent cancellation policy — a €50 fee for missed or late cancellations within 24 hours — transforms logistics into shared accountability.
In such frameworks, professionalism becomes an extension of care itself.
The Institution’s Voice
GGZ inGeest, whose motto “samen op eigen wijze” means “together in our own way” (translated from Dutch), embodies a philosophy of partnership without losing individuality.
Its collaboration with Amsterdam UMC integrates psychiatry, psychology, and research under one system, allowing discoveries in the lab to reshape therapy rooms quickly.
Even its communication — bilingual phrasing, ecological reminders about printing — conveys civic responsibility alongside scientific purpose.
The Professional at the Core
Muntingh’s credentials illustrate the layered expertise typical of Dutch mental-health care:
Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, PhD Researcher, Cognitive Behaviour Therapist (VGCt), Junior Schema Therapist (VSt), and Group Therapist (NVGP).
Her profile mirrors a national model that values lifelong learning and cross-disciplinary competence.
She stands as a bridge between individual healing and systemic innovation.
Conclusions
Integration as a Model
The collaboration between GGZ inGeest and Amsterdam UMC demonstrates how mental-health institutions can merge care, research, and education.
Professionals who move between clinics and academic teams create a feedback loop: treatment informs research, and research refines treatment.
This integrated model keeps both compassion and evidence at the heart of modern care.
Cultural Precision
Dutch healthcare’s insistence on transparency — public contact points, clear policies, multilingual communication — cultivates trust.
It shows that administrative language, when written with clarity and respect, becomes part of the therapeutic environment itself.
Clarity is care.
Sources
- GGZ inGeest — Official Website: https://www.ggzingeest.nl
- Amsterdam UMC — Research Collaborations Overview: https://www.amsterdamumc.org/en/research.htm
Appendix
Schema Therapy
Schema Therapy emerged in the early 1990s, created by Jeffrey E. Young in New York after work at Columbia University and the Cognitive Therapy Center.
Young saw that some chronic emotional problems stemmed from deeply rooted life patterns formed in childhood, which he termed maladaptive schemas.
From the US, the approach spread through Europe; Dutch researchers Arnoud Arntz and Hannie van Genderen at Maastricht and Radboud Universities helped refine and validate it.
By the 2010s, Dutch mental-health services such as GGZ inGeest had adopted Schema Therapy for complex anxiety, depression, and personality disorders.
The method blends CBT, Attachment Theory, Gestalt Techniques, and emotion-focused work, introducing “modes” — momentary emotional states such as the Vulnerable Child or Healthy Adult — and teaching patients to transform them with compassion.
Today Schema Therapy is recognised worldwide by the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) and remains a cornerstone of postgraduate psychotherapy in the Netherlands.
Attachment Theory
Originating in 1940s London through John Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic, Attachment Theory arose from studies of children separated from parents during war.
It proposed that early emotional bonds form blueprints for later relationships.
In the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth at Johns Hopkins University extended the model through systematic observation, identifying secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganised attachment styles.
Dutch universities such as Leiden and Utrecht became key European centres for attachment research.
Modern therapies, including Schema Therapy, apply these ideas by addressing unmet childhood attachment needs as the roots of adult emotional patterns.
Gestalt Techniques
Gestalt Therapy was founded in late-1940s New York by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, and Paul Goodman, blending European existential thought with American humanism.
Its name, Gestalt, means “whole” in German, emphasising unity of mind, body, and experience.
During the 1960s, it thrived across the US and Europe, focusing on awareness, choice, and the present moment.
By the 1980s, Dutch institutes had integrated Gestalt methods into broader psychotherapy training.
When Jeffrey Young later designed Schema Therapy, he borrowed Gestalt’s experiential core — especially chair work dialogues — turning awareness into structured emotional repair.
The Strange Situation Experiment
Developed in the early 1970s by Mary Ainsworth at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore), the Strange Situation used brief separations and reunions between infant and caregiver in a playroom setting to study attachment behaviour.
Observations through a one-way mirror revealed predictable patterns of distress and comfort, leading to the classification of attachment styles.
Follow-up studies in the UK, US, and Netherlands confirmed its predictive value for later emotional development.
The experiment transformed attachment from theory into measurable science and continues to inform therapies concerned with trust and bonding.
The “Chair Work” Exercise
The chair work technique, born in 1950s Gestalt Therapy under Fritz and Laura Perls, invites clients to hold dialogues with absent people or inner parts of themselves using an empty chair.
By alternating positions, they externalise conflict and experience empathy from both sides.
This physical, dramatic method spread through the human-potential movement of the 1960s and entered integrative psychotherapy worldwide.
In the 1990s, Jeffrey Young incorporated it into Schema Therapy as a tool for confronting punitive inner voices and nurturing the Vulnerable Child mode.
Dutch clinicians at institutions such as GGZ inGeest continue to use chair work to unite cognitive understanding with emotional change — an encounter that turns insight into lived transformation.
My Diary - Leonardo Cardillo 