Dear colleagues and friends,

The pandemic of COVID-19, that more or less has struck most of our countries, has influenced deeply our professional, social and personal life.

Since the beginning of the virus outbreak, we were hoping that the situation would ameliorate fast, thus giving us the exiting opportunity to welcome the EABCT community in Athens. However, the uncertainties about a possible second virus outbreak in the fall, and the existing restrictions related to air travel, led us to the decision to “move” the congress online.

We were determined to use every advantage that the technology could offer to us in order to be able to stay connected in safety even if we were not able to meet in person. We firmly believe that in these difficult times the role of the mental health expert is to provide a second line of defense against the pandemic by helping people to deal with the intense negative emotions and the mental exhaustion that both the pandemic and the prolonged isolation are causing. CBT is an evidence based intervention that can be proved to be valuable in our struggle against the effect of the pandemic on the mental health of the population; and we thought our congress could be an important contribution towards this goal.

We would like to thank you all for your continuous inspiring support during the past few months and for your invaluable contribution to the success of the congress.

Fragiskos Gonidakis
Congress President