I began my clinical practice, initially as Counselling Psychologist and then as Gestalt Psychotherapist. I worked in diverse contexts and with different populations such as people recovering from severe mental illness, people with HIV, families with children with severe developmental difficulties, unemployed women and women professionals faced with hidden yet real discrimination in their work environment. Fairly early on I realized that my goal was not to simply  to treat patients and eliminate symptoms. I was rather intrigued  by the question of ‘then what?’.
Having these questions in mind I was introduced to Positive Psychology. For the first time I discovered that many researchers, like myself, were struggling with the same questions I was and attempting to give anwers. Through my practice I have been carefully observing the beneficial effects of positive emotions, positive meaning making, optimism, mindfulness, compassion and have been using them to bring out true change in my clients’ life.

My first step in the research of relationships involved the relationship which would support other relationships, that between the therapist and the client. My Doctoral Thesis examined this relationship and its contribution to therapeutic outcome.
When, a few years later, I was proposed to write a book on anger management, I suggested writing a book regarding relationships. That is how I published a self-help book “Me and the Others” aiming at dealing with pathological social anxiety.
Sailing in known waters, in terms of psychotherapy, I was satisfied. I always thought of psychotherapy as a journey and in the notes I gave my clients, the first page depicted a sail. Therapy helped clients with social fears sail from the port of evasion and of fear, to manage the high seas of anxiety and the fear of rejection and to finally learn to swim in deep waters: meaning to be able to talk and to participate in conversations, to express their opinion, to flirt and to create relationships without anxiety. Our therapeutic relationship was that of experiment, guide and lighthouse.
It was then that I discovered Positive Psychology and realized that it was good to teach people to swim further in, but then? Then what? I left them in the middle of the ocean!! Something was missing. After acquiring the ability to create relationships, the knowledge and ability of creation and the preservation of positive relationships was missing, meaning relationships which would allow people to thrive within them, to be happy, to have support and inspiration, acceptance and purpose. I, therefore, began to search and comprehend what positive relationships actually are.
Are relationships the wholly grail to the meaning of life? The key to happiness? The path to a deserved life? The port at which we all strive to set anchor?
My involvement with positive relationships started with the aim to initially understand the characteristics and qualities of these relationships. To understand what they are and mainly how they are maintained because only then would I be able to guide the people, who I had left in the middle of the ocean, to the port of positivity of relationships.
The research was followed by the planning of exercises which help in the creation of positive relationships, implement and their assessment.
In my own personal journey in the deep waters of relationships, tracing my own route towards the port, a positive relationship was a fellow traveler-Antigone-a solid source of inspiration, of sharing and support. My journey was always interesting, with Antigone it became exciting.
We call upon you to travel with us on this journey.