Ybe Casteleyn (Bensberg, Germany, 1967) is one of Europe’s most sought-after psychotraumatologists. She has (had) clients from all over Europe: from Norway and Finland, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Poland and even as far as the USA, Syria and Afghanistan. She speaks four languages: Dutch, French, English and German. In 2016, Ybe’s help was enlisted when the two terrorist bombings took place in Brussels, Belgium, leaving dozens of victims. She worked in the refugee camps in Greece for several months. Also in 2016 she wrote a book on trauma, called ‘Sterker worden waar het pijn doet’ (aka The Healing Power of Pain). She sold thousands of copies so far.
Ybe: “With more than 25 years of experience as a traumaexpert I carry countless stories of people in need. Numerous therapysessions, interventions, exercises and the outcoming of that – both good and less succesful are etched in my mind. You’ll find those stories in my book ‘The Healing Power of Pain’.
I have worked in many different contexts, with all sorts of trauma: people hunted by their past, survivors of child abuse, refugees, victims of accidents and crime, victims of terrorist attacks and so on.
Nowadays I organise trauma- and victim support trainings for my fellow emergency workers: midwives, social workers, doctors, gyneacologists, psychologists, traumatologists, HR-managers and CEO’s of companies and NGO’s.
I studied philosophy and moral sciences, studied for four years integrative psychotherapy, was trained as a familymediator, specialised in family constellations and of course psychotraumatology. I teach at the post-graduate study of psychotraumatology at the VUB (University Brussels). I am a former Member of the Board of the BIP (Belgian Institute for Psychotraumatology), a member of the ESTSS (European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies) and I have a ECP accreditation (European Certificate Psychotherapy), In the spring of 2022 I became a Member of the Board of TraumaNet.”
Ybe’s philosophy and work is very much in line with that of Peter Levine, Janina Fischer, Babette Rothschild and Bessel van der Kolk. She is an avid advocate for the ‘trauma-informed society’. In 2021, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she decided to focus on and develop her own online courses, which hundreds of colleagues have attented so far. Ybe currently lives in France.