The Gestalt Foundation Psychotherapy and Training Center in collaboration with the Directorate of Social Welfare and Solidarity of the Municipality of Moschato -Tavros and on the occasion of the celebration of Women’s Day, on Sunday, March 8, 2026, 10:00 – 16:00, held a Conference entitled: “WOMEN’S CO-MOVEMENT” at the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Moschato -Tavros, Solomou 30, Moschato, with free admission.

After the greetings of representatives of the Municipality and the GF, the conference moved into 3 parts.

The first part involved presentations and discussions on the following topics:

“Gender Equality through the Social Services of the Municipality of Moschato -Tavros”, Dimitra Papageorgiou, Psychologist MSc, D.E.S.S.,

“The path of female presence through the years” X. Makri, Social worker

“The Invisible Thread of Care: Illuminating the value of emotional labor”, Nafsika Rentzou, Studies at Panteion University in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture. Master’s degree in Gender Studies.

“One Body, a Thousand Words”, Despina Balliou, Psychologist, MSc Counseling Psychology, Psychotherapist, Gestalt Trainer & Supervisor

The second part concerned parallel experiential groups:

“How many women can I fit in” with G. Garzonika, Psychologist, Mindfulness-based Transpersonal and V. Skafida, Mental Health Counselor

“Listening to the “seasons” of the female body” with Lilianna Zourbanou, Psychologist, postgraduate “Education & Human Rights” and Maria-Aspasia Kazala, BA Social Worker, Postgraduate in Special Education and Training (Med) and Sciences through New Technologies.

“Meeting Joy” with Georgia Galazoula: Psychologist and Patty Garoni: Nurse with postgraduate studies in Public Health.

The Conference concluded with the third part, an hour-long performance of PLAYBACK THEATER.

PLAYBACK THEATER is an interactive and improvisational type of theater where during the performance the stories shared by the audience are dramatized on stage, with theatrical techniques based on drama therapy and psychodrama, so that thoughts and feelings can be expressed, concerns can be shared and everyone can feel closer, more united.

The performance was performed by the DEKA PLAYBACK training group:

Aliki Zografou (Actor-Singer-Playback Instructor),

Thalia Kountouraki (Actor-Playback Instructor),

Iris Tsimbri (Actor-Group Animator-Playback Instructor), together with trainees from the DEKA PLAYBACK seminars).

Team Coordination: Lila Mitsopoulou (Actor-Director-Mental Health Counselor, Playback Instructor).

All parts of the conference attracted the interest of the audience, who responded with continuous active participation, great enthusiasm and very flattering comments!!!

On Sunday, February 1, 2026, an unusual three-day workshop entitled “A Doll in My Hand” was completed at the Gestalt Foundation in Athens, coordinated by Marialena Tsiamoura, Mental Health Counselor, MSc Psychology, Kindergarten Teacher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Puppeteer, trained in Gestalt Psychotherapy and Doll Therapy.

According to Marialena, dolls are material and objects. However, we see them take on breath and soul. And not only do they come to life, but they know very well how to keep young children company, to frolic on stage, while in recent years they have also been sneaking into therapists’ offices. They seem to know everything and carry the magic of the whole world. They can say about us that we cannot express, and live for us the experiences that we did not have the opportunity to live. We, for our part, are called to construct them, to make decisions about their character and world, to support their existence, to accompany them. Together, we have been there - always, since both we and they existed - to connect and relate.

In this workshop, the point where Gestalt Psychotherapy meets the art of Puppet Theater was sought with the effort to teach participants to LISTEN to the dolls and their dynamics and to try to let themselves be in the relationship with them, and to find - as therapists - the framework to coexist within the therapeutic room.

The Directorate of Primary Education of Argolida and specifically the Education Advisor PE70 of the 1st Educational Region of Argolida, Mrs. Aikaterini Gini, within the framework of her responsibilities, published on 2/2/2026 an invitation to a training program on the topic: “Communication skills, creative resolution of disagreements”. Part B, addressed to teachers and education executives of the Primary Schools of the 1st Educational Region of Argolida.

This specific program will be implemented in collaboration with the Gestalt Foundation, Psychotherapy & Training Center, and be coordinated by Mrs. Yianna Giamarelou, Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and her associates.

This training program has a duration of 10 hours and is a continuation of the program that took place in the 2024-25 school year, and hosted on Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in GREECE premises, Filellinon Square and Othonos Street, in Nafplio, on 22-23/11/2024 and 17-18/01/2025 and is provided free of charge to teachers and education officials of all primary education specialties, who attended the 1st part of the 20-hour program "Communication skills, creative conflict resolution", during the 2024-25 school year. Participation in the program is voluntary.

It is being implemented following the approval of the Education Quality Supervisor of the Primary Education Directorate of Argolida, with the kind sponsorship of the Maltezou Brothers Model Schools and will be hosted on the premises of the Maltezou Brothers Model Schools Private Primary School, 8 Fleming Street, in Argos.

In December 2025, the new issue of the magazine Epoché / Epoché - Phenomenological Psychotherapies was released, the 21st in the series, aspiring as always to be the means to put the discourse of psychotherapy in active conversation with the other discourses of society and to meet philosophy, art, politics, popular sentiment, science, etc.

This new issue hosts papers, case studies and scientific articles on phenomenological and existential approaches such as: “Finding, Anxiety, Care”  by A. Emmanouil “We Are Memories”  by K. Moutsoula, “Hopes, Fears and Enduring Relational Issues”  by L. Jacobs, “Supervision and Therapy Gestalt: The Support of Presence”  by A. Konstantinidou, “I Know You from the View…: Thoughts on Greekness in Psychotherapy”  by D. Mantzari, “Eating Disorders through the Person-Centered and Focusing Perspective” by H. Nitsa and an extensive tribute to Kostas Gemenetzis who left leaving an irreplaceable void.

The meetings with philosophy and literature also host an article on “Man and Artificial Intelligence” by K. Laurent, et al.

Issue 21 concludes with the poem “Dialogue” by D. Diomataris and the presentation of the book “Anxiety as a Bridge to Freedom – the Existential Dimension of Anxiety” by Christos Koufoudakis, by Efi Bonis.

On January 11, 2026, at the Annual General Meeting of the National Organization for Psychotherapy in Greece and in the elections that followed, the members of the new Board of Directors were elected, seven regular and one alternate.

After the formation of a body on January 13, 2026 and the secret ballot that followed, the seven regular members of the new Board of Directors were unanimously elected with the following responsibilities based on the statutes of the National Organization for Psychotherapy in Greece:

President: Tsambika Bafiti

First Vice President: Despina Balliou

Second Vice President: Stelios Krasanakis

Special. EAP Liaison Representative: Panos Asimakis

Secretary: Virginia Ioannidou

Treasurer: Triantafyllia (Felina) Iliopoulou

Member: Ioanna Kousteni

Alternate member: Elina Makrogianni

The members of the newly elected Board of Directors of the EAP expressed their gratitude to the members for the trust they showed in them and, with a sense of responsibility, collective spirit and commitment to the institutional role of the NOPG, they committed, among others, to promoting its statutory objectives within the framework of the process of institutionalizing psychotherapy in Greece, for the benefit of psychotherapy, the scientific community and society.

On Sunday, September 21, 2025, at 1:00 PM, the two-year, international, supervisor training program of our center was completed, at the Gestalt Foundation offices in Athens, where it began on January 17, 2024.

Such an ambitious and demanding undertaking was successfully completed, leaving everyone, trainees and trainers, with a taste of awakening, action, development and satisfaction!!!

This specific program was conducted in English and included 75 hours of theory and practice in supervision, 120 hours of practice / simulation training in supervision of psychotherapists, 50 hours of hupervision, individual or group with a Gestalt hupervisor and finally presentation of a written comprehensive work and evaluation process!

The program was aimed at Gestalt therapists, from Greece and abroad, with eight years of experience, members of EAGT and/or NOGT, Gestalt trainers, members of EAGT and/or NOGT, but also therapists from other methods with at least eight years of experience.

It was conducted in 4 five-day live workshops of 35 hours each and in 4 two-day online workshops of 14 hours each.

The topics covered were many and varied, such as: “Supervision: A Collaborative Endeavor” with Liv Estrup, “Issues of diagnosis and psychopathology in supervision” with Antonia Konstantinidou and George Giaglis, “A unitary perspective on the supervision situation” with Guus Klaren, “Ethical Aspects of Clinical Supervision” with Levi Nurith, “Group Supervision” with Despina Balliou, “Supervising a Gestalt child therapist: Transforming the symptom from medical to psychotherapeutic” with Antigone Orfanou, “Super – Vision Art” with Katia Hatzilakou, “Relational gestalt therapy as a restoration of dignity” with Guy Pierre Tur Valverde, etc.

On Sunday, July 6, 2025, the 10th International Gestalt Summer Camp of our center was completed! It started on Wednesday, July 2, 2025 and took place in the Forest Village “Livadaki”, in Karpenisi.

This year, it was decided that the title of the camp would be “… untitled…”

Without a title, but with a lot of meaning. The meaning, that has given our camp community for 10 years, is the team spirit, the Wisdom of the Forest, the blue sky and the sun Heliatoras, our common path, the transition from fairy tale to nature and contact.

For the 10th consecutive year we shared knowledge and experience, we remembered Chief Howe of the Indians, Alice in Wonderland, we traveled with Peter Pan and fortunately it did not rain and so we did not stare at the rainbow after the storm.

The excursions outside the camp, as every year, were carried out, giving joy and satisfaction to young and old ("via ferrata", "Always Rains" gorge, Sarakatsanai sheepfold, visit to Mavrilo).

In this way, this year too, we found the opportunity to escape from the avatar of the virtual reality of our personality on the internet and to discover, on a path that brings real contact, our nature...!

Thus, each of the participants had the opportunity to put their own title on this year's camp!

The soul of the organization, as every year, was Christina Hatzilakou, the program coordinators were Despina Balliou, Katia Hatzilakou and Maria Farmaki, and the program for the children was headed by Liana Daktyla, Marialena Tsiamoura and Eva Nikiforou!

And Of Time!!!

On Sunday, June 29, 2025, the PROFILE of the senior students of our center's four-year Gestalt Psychotherapy program was completed, which began on Thursday, June 26, 2025 and took place in the village of Voutyro in Karpenisi, where it was hosted at VILLA VIRGINIA GUESTHOUSE!

The PROFILE is an educational process, established for many years, which involves a three-day residential meeting of 4th-year trainees, which is usually held in the countryside!

All 4th-year trainees of all 3 Gestalt Foundation Centers (Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa) participate in the PROFILE with the aim of giving each trainee the opportunity to present their personal path in the educational process, ending up in the position of professional therapist.

Thus, this year's PROFILE was once again a rich and fruitful process as it was characterized, as always, by mutual sharing, feedback and interaction of all participants who were present (trainers and trainees).

The whole process was completed in a deep emotional empathy by everyone and ended with a warm farewell!!!

On the feast of the Holy Spirit, on June 9, 2025, the workshop series of our center’s Continuing Education program on the topic “The Existential Hypostasis of the Therapist”, which began in Athens, was completed in the island of Sifnos.

A workshop series, a cycle of experience dedicated to the development, care and exploration of the existential hypostasis of the therapist.

Through this cycle, the concepts of intersubjectivity, intentionality, experience and its complexity, otherness and inter-human encounter were explored in depth. The concept of the phenomenal field, as the horizon of all possible forms, was also explored, as was the concept of the phenomenological field, as the place where phenomena emerge and experience is shaped. Finally, the necessary and essential qualities of interpersonal contact were explored, such as emotional attunement, resonance and optimal response, presence, inclusion and affirmation, and how they contribute to the “here and now” of the “future becoming” (now-for-next) through the encounter with otherness.

All of the above qualities indicate the relational, field process of Gestalt therapy that is necessary in cultivating the ground, so that the emergence of self and other and the understanding of the organization of experience, as well as the exploration of the developmental-relational needs that arise in the field, are made possible.

Emphasis was also placed on the hermeneutic process as a process of existential meaning-making of experience.

The workshop in Sifnos was hosted at the Fyrogia Monastery, which also served as the starting point for the journeys on the paths. Through the body, movement, narration, dialogue, personal and supervisory work all participants walked the paths of stone… connected with white… with blue…

The coordination of the workshops of the program was carried out by Despina Balliou, Dimitra Chantziara, Elena Antoniou, Konstantina Gkioni and Kostas Michaelides.

Upon completion of the program, all participants expressed their enthusiasm and satisfaction for the completeness and scientific methodology and theory with which all the above topics were approached and covered.

Despina Balliou, M.Sc. Counseling Psychology, Psychotherapist, Gestalt Trainer & Supervisor, holder of ECP (European Certificate of Psychotherapy).

Dimitra Chantziara, B.Sc. (Hons) Psychology, certified Psychotherapist, Supervisor

Elena Antoniou, Psychologist, BSc (University of La Verne), MSc Counseling Psychology (University of Hull). Gestalt Psychotherapist and Supervisor

Konstantina Gkioni, Psychologist (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), M.Sc. Mental Health (Academic University of Athens), Gestalt Psychotherapist & Supervisor

Kostas Michaelides, He is a graduate of TEESSIDE COLLEGE, Counseling and Psychological Science. He is a Gestalt psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor