Thomas Hyphantis is a General Adult Psychiatrist and Professor of Psychiatry in the Medical School of the University of Ioannina, Greece. He served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, Greece from 2018 to 2024. He also served as Director of the Social Medicine and Mental Health Sector of the Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, Greece (2012-2015 and 2020-2023) and as appointed Special Adviser to the Minister of Health for Mental Health (2015 – 2017).

He is trained in family systems therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy. He has contributed to the development of Community Psychiatry in Greece and he has established units which provide mental health care in remote rural areas (i.e. the Ioannina-Thesprotia Mobile Mental Health Unit) (2006). He has also established the first independent psychodynamically oriented Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Unit in Greece within the University Hospital of Ioannina (2006) and the Mental Health Center of the University Hospital of Ioannina, Greece (2021). His research focuses on the complex relations between personality traits and ego defense mechanisms with psychological distress, somatization and quality of life in patients with medical illnesses and he has published more than 140 papers in international peer-reviewed journals. He has focused on chronic medical illness as well as on health services research and he has highlightened the association of the underlying psychological defensive profile with outcome in medical illness. 

He is President of the Consultation-Liaison Sector of the Hellenic Psychiatric Association, Member of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine (EAPM) and of the European Association for Somatization and Medically Unexplained Symptoms (EURASMUS). He coordinated/participated in EU/national projects as principal investigator and he has served as an evaluation expert for organizations such as the Dutch Cancer Society and the Cyprus Society for the Promotion of Research. He was Advisory Board Member of the Journal of Psychosomatic Research (2010-2022) and served as a Member of the Editorial Board of the Case Reports in Psychiatry, the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research and Well-Being, and the Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry.