The Institute
The purpose of the Institute is to promote the training, research and application of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) and to create a community of EFT therapists in Greece.
The Institute provides comprehensive training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (Levels 1, 2, and 3) as well as specialized masterclasses on the application of EFT to specific psychological problems and populations. We aim to provide high quality training from renowned international trainers and professional development opportunities for therapists who want to acquire or enhance their EFT skills.
We want to create a community of therapists through the organization of continuing education seminars and workshops, regular practice and supervision meetings, and other events for the application and development of EFT.
The Institute was founded in 2021 by Agathi Lakioti, Ph.D.
Main trainer
Agathi Lakioti, Ph.D.
Agathi Lakioti, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and works privately as a psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer. She studied psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and got her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Panteion University and her MSc in Person-Centred Counselling and Psychotherapy from the University of Strathclyde. She teaches counselling and psychotherapy, Positive Psychology and research methodology at undergraduate and postgraduate level and has been a trainer and supervisor in the Person-Centred approach for over 15 years. She is a certified therapist, supervisor and trainer in Emotion-Focused Therapy by the International Society for Emotion-Focused Therapy (ISEFT). She is also a certified Focusing and Focusing-Oriented Therapist trainer by the International Focusing Institute (TIFI). She has translated into Greek the books The Power of Focusing (2023) by Ann Weiser Cornell and Emotion-Focused Counselling in Action (2024) by Robert Elliott & Lesle Greenberg. In 2021, she founded the Hellenic Institute of Emotion-Focused Therapy (HiEFT) after experiencing the effectiveness of EFT in her clinical practice, as well as significant professional and personal growth through its training and application. She currently trains therapists in EFT and Focusing, both in Greece and internationally
International trainers
Dr. Robert Elliott
Robert Elliott, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of counselling at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland). They received a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and are also professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Toledo (Ohio). Robert’s main research interests are in change processes in humanistic-experiential psychotherapies and psychotherapy research methodology. They co-authored Facilitating emotional change (1993), Learning emotion-focused psychotherapy (2004), Research methods in clinical psychology (2015), Essentials of Descriptive-Interpretive Qualitative Research (2021), and Emotion-Focused Counselling in Action (2021), as well as more than 190 journal articles and book chapters. Robert is past president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and previously co-edited the journals Psychotherapy Research, and Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapies. They are a fellow in the divisions of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and received the Distinguished Research Career Award of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and the Carl Rogers Award from the Division of Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association. They now live in California, enjoying walking, running, science fiction, poetry, and all kinds of music.
Juliette Becking
Juliette Becking is a clinical psychologist/psychotherapist and the founder of EFTiN, the Emotion Focused Therapy institute Netherlands. She started this institute in 2016, because she felt this was the next step for her to disseminate Emotion Focused Therapy in the Netherlands and around the world. Being an experiential psychotherapist and trainer for decades, she started her EFT-training with Robert Elliott and Jeanne Watson around 2008. Totally caught by EFT she knew this was what she wanted to master, train, and spread. So, after intense training and supervision by the EFT originators she became an international EFT-trainer herself. She loves to train EFT.
EFTiN is recognized as an EFT-institute by the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy (isEFT). Juliette is an international EFT-trainer and Board Member of the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy (isEFT).
Dr. Leslie Greenberg
Leslie Greenberg is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at York University in Toronto. Born in South Africa and originally an engineer, where he came to believe in tacit knowledge, that we know more than we can say, he switched to psychology in 1970 and trained in both Person-centred and Gestalt therapy. He has been engaged in psychotherapy research for over 40 years. He has authored major texts on Emotion-Focused Therapy, starting with the first books on Emotion in psychotherapy (1986) and Emotionally focused therapy for couples (1988) and Facilitating emotional change, with Laura Rice and Robert Elliott (1993). More recent books are Emotion-focused therapy of forgiveness and letting go (2019) with Catalina Woldarsky, Changing emotion with emotion (2021) and Shame and anger in psychotherapy. He has received both the Early Career and the Distinguished Research Career awards of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research as well as the Carl Rogers and the Distinguished Professional Contribution to Applied Research awards of the American Psychological Association. He has also received the Canadian Psychological Association Professional Award for distinguished contributions to Psychology as a profession. He is a past President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. He now spends most of his time training people nationally and internationally in Emotion-Focused Therapy.
The Institute is recognized by the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy
(ISEFT)
