Events

MD, PhD Fragiskos Gonidakis is the Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, based at Eginition University Hospital. He leads both the Eating Disorders Unit and the DBT Outpatient Service, with his clinical and academic focus firmly rooted in eating disorders and DBT. Fragiskos’ interest in DBT began over 15 years ago when treating clients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and co-occurring anorexia nervosa. Conventional approaches such as CBT and systemic family therapy had limited success. He describes his shift to DBT as a transformative experience. Not only in its impact on his clients, but also in how the skills affected his own life and team dynamics. Since then, he has dedicated his work to adapting DBT for broader clinical contexts, mentoring new therapists, and destigmatizing BPD in the community.

Joaquim Soler, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, combining academic teaching with clinical work at Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona. Chair of the WDBTA Scientific Committee. “For me, academic and clinical work have always been deeply intertwined” says Joaquim. His passion lies in DBT skills training, mindfulness, and compassion-based practices, with a focus on how cognitive fusion and dialectical thinking shape human suffering and change.

His DBT journey began in the late 1990s, when designing one of Spain’s first BPD studies led him to intensive DBT training in the USA. Reflecting on that experience, Joaquim says, “Mindfulness, dialectical thinking, and validation were the concepts that most attracted my attention.” With over 140 publications, he still emphasizes the practical heart of DBT: “Skills training is not psychoeducation—it only becomes DBT when taught within its core principles.”