Registration is open here.

The symposium will take place at Tallinn University’s Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (BFM), Narva mnt 27, room N-407, and on Zoom, depending on the participation option you selected in the registration form.

Human resilience is built on connection and the capacity to regulate our emotions. This symposium brings together experts from public health, psychology, and media studies to examine how connection and emotion regulation support mental well-being across diverse populations and communities. Broad topics include the growing need to understand vulnerability and strengthen resilience in modern society (Merike Sisask), how adapting our emotion regulation to different situations supports resilience (Kaitlyn Werner), the role of regulation in experiences of solitude and mental health (Thuyvy Nguyen), and how these dynamics unfold in digital communities (Katrin Tiidenberg). Together, the talks reveal how understanding connection and regulation can strengthen mental health across diverse populations and contexts.

Dr Thuy-vy T. Nguyen is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Durham University (UK) and the Principal Investigator of the Solitude Lab. Her pioneering research examines how spending time alone (solitude) affects emotions, thoughts, and wellbeing, and she has co-authored the book Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone.

Dr Kaitlyn M. Werner is a Research Fellow in Affective Psychology at University of Tartu. Her interdisciplinary work uses multi-method approaches to explore self-regulation, emotion regulation, measurement, and well-being across contexts, emphasizing advanced quantitative methods and reproducible research practices.

Prof Katrin Tiidenberg is Professor of Participatory Culture at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, part of Tallinn University. Her research focuses on people’s social-media practices — especially visuality, sex, political participation — and interrogates identity, community, norms and power. She leads major international projects, including on digital trust and technologies of wellbeing.

Prof Merike Sisask is a Professor of Social Health Care at the School of Governance, Law and Society (SOGOLAS) of Tallinn University and a board member of the Estonian-Swedish Mental Health and Suicidology Institute (ERSI). She was the editor-in-chief of the Estonian Human Development Report 2023 “Mental Health and Well-being”. Her main research areas include the social determinants of mental health and well-being, suicide prevention, and community-based mental health prevention programmes and their evaluation.

Program:

11-13 Presentations

13-13:30 Lunch

13:30-14:30 Panel discussion