Team2.0
Dirk Stikker
Founder & Director of MASTERMIND2.0
Addictions Specialist
Family & Systemic Psychotherapist
Cert. Residential Addictions Therapy. Dip. Addictions Counseling and Consultancy. P.G. Dip.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. MSc. Family and Systemic Psychotherapy.
Dirk is a qualified and highly experienced Addictions Expert. He has been in this field of work for 30 years and worked in different countries and different settings. He worked for 13 years for the National Health Service in the UK at a specialized Alcohol & Drug Counseling Agency (National Center of Excellence)
This Agency was for many the last port of call and he would work mostly with patients who were at the extreme end of the spectrum. During his time there he held the post as Senior Addictions Therapist and was co-founder of the Family Therapy Team within said Agency. The Team won two National Nursing Awards for Effectiveness and Innovation. As part of his work he would also provide consultation for Medical Doctors and Psychiatrist to advice them about appropriate medication for his patients, such as what to prescribe, frequency and dosage. He started his career at a Therapeutic Community in the Netherlands where he was trained as an Addictions Therapist. He lived and worked there for five years during which time he has helped hundreds of people with addictions problems, mental health issues and those who had experienced severe abuse. He currently lives and works in Greece where he has a private clinic and has developed specialized programs which take him to all corners of the world. He has formed cooperation with exquisite Spa Resorts in three countries. He can offer his patients a truly holistic approach at the Resorts for signature Addictions and Psychological Well Being Program. Over the years Dirk has developed his own unique style of working with people. He is always looking for creative and innovative ways how best and effectively to support his patients on their exciting journey of Change. Dirk was born and raised in the Netherlands. After he finished school he moved abroad and lived in different countries. His passion to help people stems from his personal journey and experiences with addiction. These have given him deep understanding about himself and others. He has learned invaluable life lessons from these experiences which are reflected in his deep compassion, empathy and human approach throughout his work and his personal life.
“When you only treat symptoms or only see labels you never get to meet the person. I don’t want to “treat” or “cure” people, I love to inspire people, for people to feel inspired”.
Toli Cardases
Director of Business and Finance.
BA., Economics, DIP., Business Studies
Toli has been involved in various businesses both local and foreign in the area of sales analysis, reporting, and budgeting. His focus has been on monitoring sales and financial metrics, ensuring that business data and reporting needs are met as required by company headquarters. Toli has worked for international and local companies, including the German tire manufacturer Continental Group, the Spanish vehicle manufacturer SEAT, and several local companies in the FMCG market
His job responsibilities have included monitoring key performance indicators, assisting management in reporting, analyzing sales and financial data, and aiding in sales forecasting. He has also prepared PowerPoint presentations for the Audit Team, covering various issues related to business and market aspects. Toli’s end goal has always been to provide insights that assist in the decision-making process and to develop strategies to optimize business performance. This includes improving sales, competitively pricing the company’s product range in the market, and achieving profit margins and turnover objectives, all with the aim of providing solutions that help achieve business targets.
Richard Bruyn
Director of Neurology Department
M.D., D.Sc.
Richard is a Dutch-trained, more than 30 years experienced general neurologist. As a neurologist one often has to deal with patients with epileptic fits. Not infrequently these are caused by alcohol or withdrawal of alcohol.
The ultimate consequence of lang standing abuse of alcohol is Korsakow’s syndrome, the well known alcohol dementia. He also has encountered numerous patients with impulse control and behavioral disorders (OCD) in the context of the dopamine dysregulationsyndrome, occurring in patients with an addiction (as well as in Parkinson’s disease). Drinking alcohol for example, overstimulates the rewarding circuit in the brain, producing excessive amounts of dopamine, causing an intense feeling of pleasure and enhances the urge for more alcohol After a certain period of time, the rewarding circuit becomes less sensitive for natural rewards, such as food, and may become more dependant on the addictive substance. This may ultimately lead to addiction, where the rewarding circuit demands more stimulation in order te produce the same effect.
Other fields of his interest are headache and vertebral column related pain syndromes.
Richard is married, has three sons and one daughter and besides playing golf and bridge, he enjoys the read of a book, classical and fiction alike. His mother tongue is Dutch and he has a flair for languages, is fluent in English, good in French and Italian and moderate German speaking.
John Midavaine MD.
Medical Director
General Practitioner
Specialized in Sports Medicine and Orthomolecular medicine.
John has been involved in sports medicine for more than 35 years. He was a top athlete himself and participated in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. He always tries to get the most out of his body. John is the Medical Director at MASTERMIND2.0 and has also a successful practice and has conducted many scientific studies and publications.
In addition to conventional medicine, he also specializes in orthomolecular medicine. John has complete knowledge of physiology and the course of all processes in the body. He is particularly specialized in measuring disturbed physiological processes in the body. Particularly through measuring is knowing and the scientific approach, you find out which physiological processes in the body are disrupted and how serious this disruption is. You can restore or optimize the disrupted process through various interventions. The advantage of scientific testing is that you can objectively make a diagnosis and later check whether the intervention has worked properly. People come to his practice from all over Europe. These are not only top athletes, but also people with all kinds of physical or mental
Nora Kontostergiou
Program Director & Senior Therapist
Psychologist, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Addictions Specialist
BA.,PG.DIP.,M.CLIN.S
Nora Kontostergiou is a highly experienced and qualified psychoanalytical psychotherapist. She works in the field of clinical psychology, dual diagnosis and psychoanalysis in the last twenty years. Her training and clinical experience is based in Greece and England. She worked for the National Health Service in the UK for eight years at a specialist Clinic for addictions, dual diagnosis, couple and family therapy. She is co-founder of the award winning service of family and couple therapy for the N.H.S for innovation effectiveness and creativity. Her experience is focused on in-depth psychology, diagnosis, addictions, psychoanalysis, systemic approach, couples and family therapy, as well as art therapy.
She is highly interested in the creative versus distractive forces that seem to govern the inner psychic of each individual. Her therapeutic goals are strongly directed towards the need to help the individual to come in touch with his or her inner creative forces of life. Her psychoanalytic training as well as her long term ongoing personal analysis has offered her an in-depth understanding of herself and the general human condition and psychopathology. She is currently working for Greek psychoanalytic institutions and she has her own successful private practice. Her love for arts, especially painting, gave her the motivation to study how art therapy can enhance the healing process in a creative, genuine and profound way. The individual can benefit by expressing and symbolising the inner language of the Unconscious in a non verbal way. It is a process that can be amazingly revealing and therapeutic. She believes that addiction problems are more than they seem. Each addiction problem represents a corruptive pathway to the psychic that slowly and methodically corrupts the whole personality. The individual surrenders to the inner destructive, corruptive force to the point of annihilation. Therapy can be in most cases the only solution to this extremely difficult and deep rooted problem. Multidimensional and intensive psychotherapy can offer a fulfilling and life changing experience for any individual.
Ariadni Gramati
Senior Therapist
Psychologist, Family & Systemic Psychotherapist, Addictions Specialist
BSc Psychology, MSc Forensic Psychology, MSc Family & Systemic Psychotherapy
Ariadni is a qualified and highly experienced mental health practitioner and psychotherapist. She has worked with people who face mental health difficulties in UK and Greece in a variety of settings for seventeen years. She primarily trained in the psychoanalytic approach and provided individual and group therapy in therapeutic communities for adults with moderate to severe mental health issues such as drug and alcohol addiction, depression and anxiety, abuse, domestic violence, self-harming behaviour, eating disorders and dual diagnosis.
Within the safety of the therapeutic community, She worked with people to address their difficulties and find ways to help themselves in order to lead happier lives. This work included individual counselling, group therapy and experiential therapy outside the office in real life situations. Ariadni also worked as a Family Therapist in the NHS Crisis and Home Treatment Teams to help individuals and families in acute mental health distress as an alternative to hospital treatment. At the time she offered consultation and joint assessment to Psychiatry colleagues in in-patient settings and to the UK Social Services. She later on trained in systemic psychotherapy and focused on working with children, couples and families, specializing in couple’s therapy. As a National Health Service (NHS, UK) Highly Specialist, she also supervised trainees in Family and Systemic Psychotherapy and offered consultation to other agencies and professionals. Since 2008 she works in Greece privately, seeing individuals, couples and families, organizing and delivering workshops and raising awareness about mental health through the local press, TV and radio. She trusts that, through therapy, people can become more self-aware, work on addressing addictive behaviours of all kinds (alcohol, drugs, gambling, destructive relationships, eating disorders, etc) and become empowered. Her interest is in developing a holistic approach, tailored to each client’s needs. She uses her empathy, long experience and knowledge to develop a therapy plan with the client, couple or family. Ariadni believes that therapist and client embark on a journey together and, like Odysseus and his crew, they face a lot of challenges, winning some and losing some, but in the end getting where they want to be.
Mike Mavrokordatos
Addictions Specialist, Psychologist
Dip. Psychology
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You realize that you control your own destiny” (Albert Ellis)
Mike Mavrokordatos was born in 1977 and was raised in Greece although his upbringing has been very much influenced by both Greek and Italian culture since his mother is half Italian from her mother’s side. Mike has traveled all over Europe and America for his business and life experience and he has a passion for learning about the world’s cultures and traditions whilst being exposed to different languages, sights and people. He joined the Mediterranean College of Athens as an adult student to study psychology and counseling receiving the diploma (EQF) from the British certification body ‘Pearson Edexcel the HND’ (Higher National Diploma).
The diploma, recognized and respected by professionals around the globe combines knowledge in the science of Psychology and expertise in the art of Advisory. He is an experienced psychologist, counselor and coach with a humanistic approach based on love and positivity in therapy. He also has experience in family systemic and couple therapy plus with one to one sessions too. As a patient centered /humanistic therapist, he emphasizes the importance of an unconditionally free will and self-actualization in determining good mental health. He is an active and direct therapist emphasizing each patient’s needs individually. During his career, he has taken part in several seminars based on sexual ID, addiction, self- confidence (ego, super-ego), weight control (bulimia), psychopathology, teenagers and parental consulting. For more than six years, Mike has developed himself using his own techniques and therapy alongside advanced therapists. From his own life experiences and the progression of science, Mike believes that things can get much better once we can see a goal.
Malcolm Shaw
Senior Addictions Specialist
Psychiatric Nurse
Diploma Alcohol Counselling and Consultancy, Registered Psychiatric Nurse,Teaching and Supervision in Clinical Practice ENB998
Malcolm qualified in the early 1980’s as a psychiatric nurse. During this time, he was aware that his area of interest was in the field of addictions allied to mental health (duel diagnosis). After spending some time working in the field of drug misuse in the private sector he returned to the NHS to specialise in alcohol misuse, working in a centre that specialised with the accompanying issues of mental health.
His career of 35 plus years has covered working in both the NHS and private sectors. He has spent part of that time working as forensic nurse in custody suits and prisons with detained persons where alcohol, substance misuse and mental health issues feature highly. Also he worked for a university providing counselling to students and staff for a variety of concerns. Recently he has been a manager of a team commissioned to implement and develop a new substance misuse service in a general hospital to improve patient care. This encompassed screening, psychological brief interventions, detoxing, medical interventions, advising management, doctors and nurses and supervision and training of staff. His career path has remained predominantly with people who have had severe issues with alcohol and substances. This has led to many years of experience, working with individuals, couples, families and extensive group work. He has worked closely with commissionaires in setting up new services. Malcolm has also been instrumental in training and supervising colleagues and providing training for external parties. During his career he has undertaken many courses, some of which are; Motivational Interviewing, CBT, Couples and Family Therapy, Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy and CRA. This has provided him with an overview of many treatments and therapies of use to help in the treatment of clients. After many years of service mainly in the NHS Malcolm has now taken very active retirement following up those thing which while working were always dreams. Those skills gained over previous years still hold much interest, the passion to see people change still burns very brightly. Malcolm’s belief is there is no ‘magic wand’ and that ‘recovery’ has to be worked at. There may be no one answer, but it does not have to be complicated. The answers often lay within the individual, it’s just discovering and embracing them. He believes that everyone has the ability to change. It is important to understand what the client brings with them and how they want to change. What barriers and blocks they put in the way of this process but importantly what are their aspirations. Taking personal responsibility, reflection and understanding of the self, making lasting behavioral changes are key, change can be emotionally taxing but the rewards, life changing.
Carolien Stikker
Integrative Psychotherapist
Dip. Integrative Psychotherapy
Carolien Stikker has an integrative approach to psychotherapy that involves various methods and takes into account differing experiences and outlooks on life. In addition to psychotherapy, she has developed a walking-therapy that adds insight through movement and the body. In her psychotherapy practice she draws from different experiences. It is informed by her art practice and teaching art, as much as it is by her dedication to walking.
“In therapy as well as in art, we question things differently to confront fixed ideas that sometimes hold us back in finding creative solutions to our problems.
Teaching art requires paying close attention and requires empathy in order to guide someone to realise their goals.
Through the simple act of walking, we learn to trust our bodies and use movement to untangle thoughts and resolve them in new ways.”
Carolien had a successful career as a fine artist. 5 years ago she started to look for new ways to use her talents in observation, creating and looking for new forms of understanding of how the human mind works. Through the unexpected and sudden loss of two close family members she was given the opportunity to face life in all the questions of why and how to live. She decided to investigate and learn as much as possible about the human psychological process including her own. Studying to become a psycho-therapist and going on long solo walking trips throughout Europe created a new outlook and insights into how we can approach our often tangled emotions. The walking-therapy is one of the results and is highly effective for individuals who tend to stay in their thinking. It is appropriately called: Walking your Thinking
Hellmut Wolf
Addictions Specialist & Sex Therapist, Creative Artist and Musician.
Cert., Dip. Addictions Therapy
Hellmut Wolf is a certified Humaniversity therapist and Humaniversity therapist trainer. In his many years of experience in working with people, which started in 1980 by “finding out about himself”.
After several years of training and graduating as Humaniversity therapist, Hellmut worked for many years all over the world, specializing in group therapy (encounter, sexuality – tandra, marathons, authority and creativity workshops). His caring and loving style, and his ability to invite his clients to go deep into their emotional world whilst feeling safe to go to difficult places inside, has enabled him to touch and to help many people. Hellmut is also a well-known musician and music producer, who runs his own record label and his unique experience as therapist and artist, enables him to invite his clients to learn to be in the moment and live a creative life, based on love and awareness.
Yvonne-Arusha Schol
Addictions Specialist.
Dip., Cert. Psychotherapy, Amsterdam, Leiden, The Netherlands,(Gestalt, MI, Rogerian, Jungian), Internationally licenced by Hazelden/Bettyford clinics, USA. Cert. Iyengar Yoga-teacher, London.
Yvonne-Arusha Schol is specialized in working with addictions-family-related disturbances. She has broad internationally experiences. She worked and studied in The Netherlands, England, France, USA, Australia and Asia. As an experienced ‘yogi’ for over 35 years she truly believes in the body-mind-soul concept. Through her own life’s journey, she has encountered many setbacks, (family)-crisis and trauma. From personal and professional experiences she knows to go inside rather than hope for solutions from the outside brings peace and love. Love of self is the best healer.
“In my humble opinion the solution for the start of a great journey is to find the connection to your own heart. Recovery is a journey and ongoing process”. She will guide you through this journey with compassion and adapts the therapy whenever needed. In her work she uses psychotherapy, bodywork, exploring spirituality and uncover past trauma, family-relations and find healing in the process.
Elizabeth Kirby Fullerton
Progressive Recovery Coach
Culinary Coach
Ph.D., M.Ed. and B.A.
Certified Health and Wellness Coach
Elizabeth is a certified health and wellness coach for those who are ready to develop a personal blueprint for well-being. A blueprint that is tailored to each client’s personal lifestyle, strengths, and environment. As a coach she works to build the confidence needed to make systematic, sustainable change to enhance and improve life satisfaction as well as life balance. Incorporated within her practice is culinary coaching to improve food choices and food preparation as part of a new health infused lifestyle. As part of her own living well blueprint she is a certified Pilates instructor and running coach welcoming the chance to share her knowledge and passion with interested clients.
For clients with substance abuse disorders and their families, Elizabeth provides specialized coaching to individuals and/or families/partners to navigate engage and make the best possible use of evidence-based therapies. She engages the person with addiction to fully participate in his/her chosen treatment, extend the benefits of recovery and supports while working to reduce relapse. For the family members Elizabeth coaches to improve interactions and family functioning while ensuring that they are taking care of themselves. Elizabeth has lived and worked in eight countries. In each location her focus has been to enhance and improve the lives of others, building on their skills and assets as they navigate difficult situations. Elizabeth is a certified health and wellness coach for those who are ready to develop a personal blueprint for well-being. A blueprint that is tailored to each client’s personal lifestyle, strengths, and environment. As a coach she works to build the confidence needed to make systematic, sustainable change to enhance and improve life satisfaction as well as life balance. Incorporated within her practice is culinary coaching to improve food choices and food preparation as part of a new health infused lifestyle. As part of her own living well blueprint she is a certified Pilates instructor and running coach welcoming the chance to share her knowledge and passion with interested clients. For clients with substance abuse disorders and their families, Elizabeth provides specialized coaching to individuals and/or families/partners to navigate engage and make the best possible use of evidence-based therapies. She engages the person with addiction to fully participate in his/her chosen treatment, extend the benefits of recovery and supports while working to reduce relapse. For the family members Elizabeth coaches to improve interactions and family functioning while ensuring that they are taking care of themselves. Elizabeth has lived and worked in eight countries. In each location her focus has been to enhance and improve the lives of others, building on their skills and assets as they navigate difficult situations.
Vivian Menjivar
Holistic Facilitator & Teacher Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy.
Certified Amma Therapist, Bachelors Degree in Amma Therapy, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Holistic Health Coach, Professional and Certification Apprenticeships as well as Teacher Training for The Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy , Classical 5 Element Acupuncture
Vivian is a highly qualified and experienced Holistic Healing Facilitator, with a private practice in Athens and Corfu, Greece. She has integrated her gifts of Clairsentience, Clairaudience and Telepathy and sensitivity, using them as tools to get a clear picture of what my client needs to focus on for their healing. She uses many traditional healing techniques such as prayer, herbal bathing and the burning of incense as well as tremendous compassion and love.
Maya Spiritual Healing
Modern medicine is only now beginning to understand the healing wisdom of ancient cultures and the link between many physical illnesses is connected with unresolved emotional stress and distress, and finally beginning to catch up with the healing wisdom of the Maya and other cultures. Numerous scientific studies have noted a connection between many diseases such as high blood pressure, arthritis, heart disease, cancer, etc. and unresolved emotional stress. At the same time, neuroscience is explaining how brain chemistry affects our mental and emotional states. The Maya, as with traditional cultures, recognize diseases of the soul as well as the body and are aware that there are both spiritual and physical causes of illness. Maya Spiritual Healing consists of prayer (appropriate to your faith) , spiritual herbal baths, and incense that serve to re-balance and harmonize the human aura or energy field so that we can attract good into our lives and repel what does not serve our highest purpose. This healing work addresses the physical, emotional and spiritual bodies of each individual in such a way as to return that person to vitality, peace and well-being. Thus, we are better able to lay down the baggage from the past to realize the fullest potential of a human being.