Dr. Allan Abbass is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and founding Director of the Centre for Emotions and Health at Dalhousie University in Canada.

He completed Medicine at Dalhousie University and a residency in Family Medicine and has worked as a family physician and emergency physician. He completed a Psychiatry residency at the University of Toronto dedicating his career to teaching and researching the impact of emotions on health. 

Over the past 25 years he has become a leading teacher and researcher in the area of Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy, having provided over 350 invited presentations and over 250 publications including his first 2 books Reaching Through Resistance: Advanced Psychotherapy Techniques and Hidden from View: clinician’s guide to psychophysiologic disorders.  He has been both a lead and co-investigator of research into Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy for Treatment Resistant Depression, Personality Disorders and somatic symptom disorders.  He has received a number of awards including a national teaching award in Psychiatry. In 2018 he was named the David Malan visiting Professor of Psychotherapy at the Tavistock in London and is the current president of the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association.