Our beloved colleague Achilleas Prokopiou passed away too soon on the 25th of July 2017. He was a charismatic and tireless psychotherapist and trainer. He approached individuals with respect, intuition, warmth and humour and contributed to their development. He had a unique ability to connect and embrace the person, the family, the group, the big audience he addressed.

He managed to gain his discussants with his sharpness, his sweetness and his positive energy. He shared his ideas and his tools with great generosity. He worked with a hearty enthusiasm with adults and children, with authentic cordiality and optimism. His genuine curiosity and composite way of thinking made him a deep connoisseur and thinker in many fields besides psychology and psychiatry.

He was modest, human, courageous. Despite his great experience and success, he did not hesitate to talk about his weaknesses, allowing in this way his trainees to come in touch with their own shady parts.

Achilleas loved Thessaloniki. It was in a discussion with him, when the idea emerged to offer a four-years’ training in our Institute. We matched in our constructivistic approach, in the consistency between words and actions, in the respect towards both clients and trainees. We collaborated in harmony and in joy. He taught a lot and lavishly to the trainees and to me.

Achilleas talked to our hearts. All of us who met and worked with him, will remember him with vast gratitude and love,

Virginia Ioannidou

He graduated from the School of Medicine of the University of Athens, where he was further awarded a PhD.

He worked as a psychiatrist in the Psychiatric Hospital of Athens and in the Clinic for Mental Diseases of Chania. With his second specialization as a child psychiatrist he was the administrator of the Mental Health Center of Chania from 1996 until 2005.

He directed, along with the psychiatrist Maria Nigrintaki, the Institute of Family Consultation and Systemic Therapy in Chania, member of the Training Institutes Chamber of the European Family Therapy Association (EFTA-TIC).

He offered psychotherapy to individuals, couples, families, groups and networks, as well as intervention programs in the community, initially in public and later in the private sector. In addition to that, he organized every year a full training program in systemic therapy.

Achilleas Prokopiou was an academic partner of the University of Crete (Department of Special Preschool Education). He was the scientific director of the Systemic Psychodrama approach in the Center for Applied Psychotherapy and Counseling in Athens.

He had the European Certificate of Psychotherapy, was a member of the European Family Therapy Association (EFTA) and a founding member of the following associations: Hellenic Association of Systemic Therapy (HELASYTH), Hellenic Systemic Thinking and Family Therapy Association (HESTAFTA) and Systemic Association of Crete. He was a board member of the Athenian Institute of Anthropos (AIA, where he had mainly had his training in psychotherapy).