2025 Oskar Pfister Award - APA - Alexander Moreira-Almeida MD, PhD

Lecture "Scientific Exploration of the Nature of Spiritual Experiences" delivered by Prof. Alexander Moreira-Almeida MD, PhD at the 2025 Oskar Pfister Award ceremony in the 2025 American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, in Los Angeles (USA), May 17th, 2025.

The Oskar Pfister Award was established in 1983 in memory of Oskar Pfister and honors outstanding contributions in the field of psychiatry and religion. It is granted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the Association of Professional Chaplains.

Among the previous awardees are Viktor Frankl, Paul Ricoeur, Harold Koenig, Ken Pargament, and Robert Cloninger.

Introduction to the lecture performed by Mary Lynn Dell, MD, DMin, MHA
Chair, American Psychiatric Association Caucus on Religion, Spirituality, & Psychiatry
Chair, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Living/Hartford Healthcare
Professor of Psychiatry, Frank H. Netter, MD, School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
Visiting Professor of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut

About the Oskar Pfister Award
www.psychiatry.org/membership/awards-leadership-opportunities/awards/oskar-pfister-award

Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD is Professor of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) School of Medicine and Founder and Director of the Research Center in Spirituality and Health, Brazil. Founding chair of the section on spirituality of the Brazilian Psychiatric Association (2014-21). Former chair of the Sections on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) (2014-21) when coordinated the WPA Position Statement on Spirituality and Religion in Psychiatry. Author of more than 200 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters that received more than 9,600 citations, h index 50 (Google Scholar). More than 550 presentations at academic meetings, including 160 abroad in 19 countries. Editor of the book "Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures" (Oxford Univ Press, 2021) and coauthor of "Science of Life After Death" (Springer, 2022).
CV: http://lattes.cnpq.br/9072644751174322