About

The course

I was born in Thessaloniki (Greece) and I live here.
A quick sketch of my course is at the front page of this website.
My journey, in some more words, was and is the following one:

 

In the very distant past, I had once studied dentistry, but I practiced it only part-time.

Also in the distant past, for a very critical and quite long period of my life (about 17 years) I have been a professional composer.     

I was composing for both acoustic instruments and electronic sound sources or often combining the two of them.

 

*** My compositions were either independent works or pieces based on images, dance, literary works, drama and paintings. They have been heard at recitals and live performances as well as on the radio and television both in Greece and abroad.

*** In the discography appeared 5 of my works (in LP albums and CDs), but I have numerous other compositions.

*** All of my works, no matter their original reason and framework of production and use, today is mostly presented and distributed through Internet and I do not think that anyone of them appears anymore in any form in the market.

***Responses on and reflections about my compositions, mentioning that they are characterized by:
intense inner atmosphere, compact musical structure, a great variation in both style and references, a “narrative” and theatrical mood, a poetic character through the conjunction of “classical” features and modern writing.

*** For a brief presentation of my course in music by  François Couture at the website (data-bank) ALLMUSIC click here.

Moreover, in this long period, I have been involved in various organisational initiatives since 1989. Such examples were:
***The foundation of a Summer Cycle of Multiple Events in Milina (South Pelion, Greece),which for five consecutive years has been an established institution. 
***The foundation of three Associations, along with people who shared common views on the social dynamics of culture.

In composing music, I very early developed the tendency to combine my works with other forms of art. So, I often co-operated with painters, actors and dancers.

Since 1995, this tendency, to combine multiple artistic languages, motivated me to realise a series of workshops around creative expression and stage improvisation.
Sound, movement and texts were combined in several forms of interactive improvisations. In these improvisations body, voice, moving as well as work with feelings were integrated by co-operating as a “whole”.

A representative model of such a workshop is “Polytechno”, which we devised since 1997 along with the director – actress Tina Stefanopoulou, and continues existing till today. 
However, I note that today my involvement in this workshop, though active, became gradually less as I developed other orientations, like: my focus on Gestalt therapy practice and theory, my interest in systematically writing, in supervision in psychotherapy, in training, in applying PSP in Playback Theatre and other fields.

Around 1998, I had decided to orient towards self-knowledge and psychotherapy, and to be appropriately trained. 
So, I started by following in Greece and Paris, from 1999 to 2000, the Alfred Tomatis method (Audio-Psycho-Phonology), as well as various seminars and workshops in dramatherapy and group dynamics.

At that time, I took one of the most important decisions in my life, that since then changed drastically all my course and the quality of all my moments.

I followed the complete 4-year educational training program in Gestalt psychotherapy of the GESTALT FOUNDATION (Greece ). I am a member of EAGT (the European Association of Gestalt Therapy) and an accredited by EAGT supervisor. 
To do so, I had also to graduate in Psychology.

Gestalt therapy and mainly the existential philosophy rooted at its foundation, has become -and still is- the primary core on which I am basing my stance and my creativity in any sense.

During that period, through my collaboration with the psychodramatist – psychotherapist Christina Patriniou, we developed from 2003 up to 2006 the framework “Creative Communication”.

In the meantime, around 2005, I started configuring my broader personal approach “PSP -Process Stage Praxis”. 

PSP, generally speaking, is an integration of the fundamental principles of the Gestalt therapy philosophy with the  embodied improvised interaction.
However, I note that the PSP applications do not regard only the psychotherapeutic field but are also effective in art, education, Organisations and work, etc.
PSP is not an autonomous psychotherapeutic approach and it does not substitute the usual studies in any kind of psychotherapy.
I would say that PSP can be used in any kind of field that has to do with personal growth and social interventions.

In this link, there is a short video in English  with the “motif exercise” (a coral idea in PSP). The same video is uploaded in YOU TUBE.

PSP, apart its application level, is functioning also on a TRAINING one.
This training level, is by now becoming more and more active, by functioning as a kind of an informal “School”.
On this level, there are being developed BASIC TRAINING PROGRAMS introducing PSP (you may visit the relevant menu).
Such Programs are flexible enough in form, duration and content to meet the each time goals and needs – you may see the relevant menu. 

Since 2003 I got also involved with Playback Theatre, an idiosyncratic form of improvised stage action devised by Jonathan Fox and his co-operators. 

I was between the pioneers of Playback Theatre in Greece and have been a founding member of the group “Hellenic Playback Theatre” up to March of 2006.

Around the end of October 2006, I founded and cooperated with the T!NGᅠ Playback group (Thessaloniki, Greece) – a group that lived for 9 years.

This group has been trained through an application of PSP (adjusted to the needs and features of the Playback Theatre field), which today is my perspective on teaching and “doing” Playback Theatre – you may see the relevant menu.

Since I got in the field of Gestalt therapy, I chose not to compose anymore music professionally. Naturally and spontaneously a big part of my creativity is “re-channelised” in: writing books and texts, lecturing (live and through videos), workshops – seminars, training, groups of personal growth.

So, in this present period of my life:

(1) 

In Greece and abroad, I am an external co-operator (in training, supervision, postgraduate and other Programs), at various Centres and Institutes of training and psychotherapy (in Gestalt therapy or other modalities), such as:  “GESTALT FOUNDATION”, “INTEGRATIVE GESTALT TRAINING INSTITUTE”, “SINERGIA”, “ΙSTOK”. 
The hours of my training workshops cover hours required officially by the training structure of the each time inviting Institution, in case it is acknowledged by EAGT.

(2) 

I am systematically writing on several topics: on PSP, on Gestalt therapy and the philosophy in its foundation.
Moreover I focus much on human relationships.
The themes of my writings are: eros, sexual desire, love, loneliness, loss, futility, choices, the “inner child”, the “Shadow” etc.

***In May of 2017 was published (in Greek) my book “DANCE OF THE MIRACLES: THE BIG JOURNEYS IN THE SMALL STEPS”.
***In January of 2018 the book “SHADOW: OUR SILENT COMPANION THROUGH LIF’E’S JOURNEY” (published also in English since July 2019). 
***In March of 2018 the book “NOTES FOR YOU – Notebook A” (published also in English since July 2018).
***Around the end of 2021 is scheduled the publication in English of my book  IN THE SHADOWS OF EROS – the 1st autonomous part of the trilogy  “…TO THE HERETICS OF LOVE: THE EYES IN WHICH I WAS MIRRORED” (on eros, sexual desire, and love).

(3) 
I participate in various activities in volunteering (various Programs as well as Programs about rehabilitation, delinquency, adolescents etc): Community events, Playback performances, lecturing, establishing Associations with other professionals (such as the DIAMERISMA 5 one, in Thessaloniki) etc.

(4) 
About all this and especially about the relationships of eros, sexual desire and love, I realise every year sequences of lectures, experiential workshops and from time to time live videos. 

Moreover, I run Basic Programs introducing PSP, and I apply PSP in various fields (not only in psychotherapy), in Greece and abroad.

(5) 
Presently,  my connection with art is rather limited and it has to do with the following activities:
*** From time to time I enjoy participating in performances by the group “Playback Theatre Thessaloniki”. However, apart this co-operation, I am involved with this kind of interactive improvisation basically as a trainer. The same applies regarding the workshop of creative interaction “Polytechno”.
*** I often use parts of my past compositions in videos (no words) which are introductions or parts of my lectures.  
*** I sometimes lecture on music and the artistic creativity.
*** I enjoy again, since 2017, something that I always liked very much: to explore how prose and poetry can be combined with music – either by composing a background of recorded music or by playing live the classical guitar.   

It doesn’t matter so much that I do not know what is coming next...

… however, I am not at all in the quest for any kind of universal and hidden “eternal truths”.

Moreover, when looking back on my timeline, I do not sense that whatever I now see consisting my past has been any kind of “quest” at all. 
Rather, I sense that my past was basically shaped by an overwhelming wish to experience honestly and fully each cycle of my life until it is over, welcoming the next one – no matter its nature

So I respectfully bow to the Vast Unknown and I really do hope, thankfully, that there will be enough time just for still many miracles to be experienced.

However, whenever I am running over a new spiral of my life-events, often comes in my mind and moves me always deeply, a magnificent (for my taste) song, interpreted uniquely by Frank Sinatra.

I am warmly suggesting to enjoy listening to this song, while reading at the same time its amazingly “Gestalt” and astounding lyrics.

It fits perfectly to my views for being literally “ALIVE”.
I really think that it is beautiful in a very profound sense – and in a way “mine”, too….

_______

Frank Sinatra / My Way

Songwriters: Jacques Revaux, Paul Anka (Eng Lyr), Gilles Thibaut, Claude Francois

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and ev’ry highway
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through
without exemption
I planned each charted course,
each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
and did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
“Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way”

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
Yes, it was my way…

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