Anika Bexkens-Sifrim bridges the gap between science, practice and education by combining roles as researcher, clinician and educator. In all these roles she focuses on evidence based practice, which entails clinical decision-making for individual clients by integrating clinical expertise and client preferences with the best scientific evidence. In her research she mainly focuses on developing diagnostic assessment and intervention models to improve anxiety treatment for youth with and without mild intellectual disability.

More information about Anika Bexkens

Anika Bexkens-Sifrim bridges the gap between science, practice and education by combining roles as researcher, clinician and educator. In all these roles she focuses on evidence based practice, which entails clinical decision-making for individual clients by integrating clinical expertise and client preferences with the best scientific evidence. In her research she mainly focuses on developing diagnostic assessment and intervention models to improve anxiety treatment for youth with and without mild intellectual disability.

Research on improving mental healthcare

In her research, Anika focuses on improving mental healthcare for children and adolescents with and without intellectual disabilities. She received a ZonMW Praktijkfellowship to develop and test a new intervention for anxiety treatment for adolescents with mild intellectual disability.

Facing Fears Together

In the project Facing Fears Together she studies ways to include peer-mentors with lived experience of anxiety and mild intellectual disability during the treatment proces. She was able to extend the scope of this project by a grant provided by GGZ Delfland, which is used to test the benefit of including peer-mentors in the treatment of all youth with anxiety disorders.

The project team consists of scientist-practitioners who work in both practice and research. In addition, together with colleagues at GGZ Delfland, she developed a research line on using VR during therapy. Currently, they are working on improving therapy for depression using VR. Finally, Anika is working together with colleague Anke Klein on improving treatment for children and youth with both anxiety and mood problems.  

Teaching

In her teaching, Anika focuses on training future psychologists and healthcare psychologists in evidence-based practice, a clinical decision-making model to help treating psychologists to provide the best care by making science-informed decisions. She is also involved in courses training clinical skills such as diagnostic assessment and cognitive behavioral therapy.  

Short CV

Anika Bexkens is a professor in the unit of Developmental and Educational Psychology of the Institute of Psychology at Leiden University. She combines this position with her work as a clinical psychologist at GGZ Delfland and LUBEC. 

She obtained her master's degree from the University of Amsterdam in 2007 and received her PhD in December 2013, also at the University of Amsterdam. Anika's PhD project focused on risk-taking in adolescents with mild-to-borderline intellectual disability and/or behaviour disorder. During this scientist-practitioner project, she also trained as a healthcare psychologist and graduated from this clinical training programme in 2011.

After that, she started working at Leiden University in 2013, becoming a member of the Developmental and Educational Psychology unit. In 2014, she started her work as healthcare psychologist at GGZ Delfland, where she finished here post-master clinical psychologist and psychotherapist certification in 2020.

To further integrate science and practice, she started working at the Child and Adolescent department at the LUBEC in 2021, heading a team focused on diagnostic assessment and treatment of a wide range of developmental and mental health issues, but with a special focus on anxiety and trauma related problems. In 2023 she started as head of education in the post master clinical training for psychologists (GZ-opleiding).

She currently combines these roles as professor, clinical psychologist and head educator, thereby integrating science, practice and education. 

Grants

• 2023 ZonMW Practice-Oriented Research in Mental Health Care (GGZ), Treatment of Comorbid Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents. Combining Child Therapy (CBT) and Parent Therapy (SPACE). Co-applicant with Dr. Anke Klein (€600,000).
• 2023 NWA-Science Communication (WECOM). The Power of Science Communication in the Early Detection and Treatment of Children with Anxiety and Stress. Co-applicant with Dr. Anke Klein, Dr. Marieke Bos, and Prof. Dr. Michiel Westenberg (€150,000).
• 2022 GGZ Delfland: Facing Fears Together - Research Budget for PhD Research Facing Fears Together. Further Development of Peer-Mentored CBT for Adolescents with Anxiety Disorder without Intellectual Disabilities.
• 2021 ZonMW Practice Fellowship: Facing Fears Together for Youth with Intellectual Disabilities: Developing Peer-Mentored CBT to Treat Anxiety Disorders in Youth with Intellectual Disabilities.
• 2021 Suffugium Grant from the Knowledge Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for a Proof-of-Concept (Single-Case Experimental Design) Study on Virtual Reality Focused on Improving Positive Affect in Adolescents with a Depressive Disorder (€22,000).
• 2020 Educational Innovation Grant from the Municipality of Leiden for Early Recognition and Intervention for Anxiety Problems in Children and Adolescents, and Establishing Sustainable Collaboration with Primary and Secondary Education in Leiden (€50,000).
• 2019 Research Budget Awarded to My Research Team by GGZ Delfland for PhD Project on Virtual Reality Treatment for Improving Positive Affect in Adolescents and Adults with a Depressive Disorder. The candidate is a Licensed Health-Care Psychologist.

Publications