About the Conference
Building on the success of its three previous editions, the fourth International Conference on Parental Burnout will bring together researchers and practitioners interested in parental burnout, parental well-being, and family functioning. The conference provides a platform for presenting the latest research findings and fostering collaboration and exchange of ideas among scholars and professionals working across the fields of parenting, family studies, and mental health.
The conference continues the tradition of previous meetings devoted to parental burnout research and aims to strengthen international collaboration among scholars studying parenting and family well-being.
The program will feature keynote lectures by invited experts, thematic symposia, paper and poster sessions, panel discussions, and a hands-on workshop focused on therapeutic interventions for parental burnout.
The event will be hosted at the Faculty of Psychology at SWPS University in Kraków — one of the oldest and most vibrant academic cities in Central Europe, which offers a unique historical setting for academic exchange and international collaboration.
Call for Papers
The conference welcomes contributions from researchers and practitioners studying parental burnout as well as related aspects of parenting, family relationships, and mental health. The range of topics includes:
- Parental burnout: conceptualization, measurement, and theoretical models
- Biological correlates of parental burnout
- Risk and protective factors associated with parental burnout
- Consequences of parental burnout for parents, children, and family functioning
- Parental burnout in cultural and cross-cultural contexts
- Parenting stress, parental well-being, and family dynamics
- Parenthood regret and related phenomena
- Prevention, intervention, and clinical approaches to parental burnout
Submission Requirements
We invite submissions in English, no longer than 200 words, for:
- Individual oral presentations
- Poster presentations
- Symposia
Authors should indicate their preferred presentation format: oral presentation or poster. The Scientific Committee reserves the right to propose a different presentation format depending on the number and quality of submissions.
All submissions will be reviewed by members of the Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance will be sent by February 15, 2027.
Review detailed submission and presentation guidelines
Abstract Submission Form
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Keynote Speakers
Moïra Mikolajczak
Moïra Mikolajczak is a leading expert on emotions, emotional competence, and parental burnout. She earned a PhD at the University of Louvain under Olivier Luminet, completed an in-doc at University of London with K. V. Petrides, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford with James J. Gross. Since 2010 she has taught and researched at UCLouvain, and developed pioneering interventions to strengthen emotional intelligence in adults. In 2015 she and Isabelle Roskam launched a research program on parental burnout. They co-direct the Parental Burnout Research Lab, coordinate the International Investigation of Parental Burnout Consortium, and co-founded the Training Institute for Psychology and Health. Moïra is author or coauthor of numerous influential articles and books.
Isabelle Roskam
Isabelle Roskam is a leading expert on child externalizing behavior, parenting beliefs and behaviors, and parental burnout. She earned her PhD at UCLouvain under the supervision of Christiane Vandenplas and completed postdoctoral research training at the University of Cambridge with Professor Claire Hughes. Before joining the faculty at UCLouvain in 2004, she worked for ten years (1997–2007) as a clinical psychologist in pediatric neurology at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels. In 2015, together with Moïra Mikolajczak, she launched an ambitious research program on parental burnout. They co-direct the Parental Burnout Research Lab, coordinate the International Investigation of Parental Burnout Consortium, and co-founded the Training Institute for Psychology and Health. Isabelle Roskam is the author or co-author of numerous influential scientific articles and books on parenting, child development, and parental well-being.
Maria Elena Brianda
Maria Elena Brianda is an expert in family and systemic psychology, with a particular focus on parenthood, family and couple relationships, and parental burnout. After a master's degree in clinical and psychodynamic psychology at the University of Padova (Italy), she completed her Ph.D. at UCLouvain (Belgium) under the supervision of Professors Moïra Mikolajczak and Isabelle Roskam, studying the psychological and biological correlates of parental burnout and coordinating a large-scale randomized controlled trial on a group intervention for exhausted parents. Since 2021 she has taught at the University of Liège (Belgium), where she is academic head of the family and systemic psychology unit, and, since 2025, President of the University Psychological and Speech and Language Therapy Clinic. Her current research interests focus on parental burnout and its relational dynamics, through projects on the associations between the couple relationship (marital and coparenting) and parental burnout, on the well-being and burnout risk of separated and divorced parents, and on relational needs in the age of artificial intelligence. She also trains professionals in parental burnout and helps embed this concept in community programs such as the Interreg FAMILY project on the first 1,000 days. Beyond her scientific articles, she is co-author of the first treatment manual for parental burnout.
Organizers
Partners
- International Parental Burnout Consortium (IPBC)
- Parenthood Regret Research Network (PRRN), an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to studying the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of parenthood regret, led by Professor Konrad Piotrowski from SWPS University.
Scientific Committee
- Gizem Arıkan, Özyeğin University, Turkey
- Saskia Baumgardt, HMU Health and Medical University, Germany
- Noémie Carbonneau, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Canada
- Nicola Carrone, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
- María Josefina Escobar, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile
- Jorge Gato, University of Porto, Portugal
- James J. Gross, Stanford University, USA
- Margaret Kerr, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
- Marisa Matias, University of Porto, Portugal
- Moïra Mikolajczak, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
- Konrad Piotrowski, SWPS University, Poland
- Andreja Poljanec, The Family Study and Research Centre, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Isabelle Roskam, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
- Bart Soenens, Ghent University, Belgium
- Dorota Szczygieł, SWPS University, Poland
- Cara Swit – University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, New Zealand
- Meltem Üstündağ-Budak, Bahçeşehir University, Turkey
- Agata Urbanowicz, Université Grenoble Alpes, France
Organizing Committee (SWPS University)
- Magdalena Kosno
- Konrad Piotrowski
- Juliette Rouleau
- Zofia Różańska
- Dorota Szczygieł
- Paulina Szydłowska-Klakla
- Kamil Tomaszewski