Irena Shtraza

 

Irena graduated in 2002 in Guidance and Psychological Counseling from Bosphorous University, Istanbul, Turkey and in 2006 in ‘Interpersonal Relationships and Personality’, from the Clinical Psychology Department  of University of Padua, Italy. She pursued her post-graduate studies in ‘Family Interventions’, at the Clinical Psychology Department of University of Padua. During 2008-2015 she has been a lecturer at the Psychology Department of Albanian University, Tirana. During these years she has practiced her profession as a psychologist in her private practice. Irena has qualified as a group psychotherapist (analytical approach), a qualification accredited from the Institute of Group Analysis, London, United Kingdom and since 2021, she has been practicing as a group psychotherapist in Tirana.

Since 2007 she has worked in the civil society sector on women and chidren human rights issues. She is a trainer on gender equality issues and is author and co-author of publications on gender equality related topics, as well as in researches, women economic empowerment, violence against women, trafficking of girls and women and child rights related.

She is a founding member of the “Group Analysis Association in Albania” and has contributed for several years to the organization’s governing council. Since the establishment of Group Analysis in Albania, she has been a co-organizer and co-facilitator of monthly community groups. She is an active member of GASi – Group Analytic Society International (https://groupanalyticsociety.co.uk), participant of different international groups since 2015, and presenter in international seminars on group-analytic psychotherapy. Co-organizer and facilitator of an international group on internalized misogyny, in the frame of GASi’s special interest groups.

Since 2022, she is a delegate for Albania in EGATIN – European Network of Training Institutions in Group Analysis.