Dr Siegfried Kasper is Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Born in Salzburg, Austria, he was educated at the medical schools of the University of Innsbruck, Austria and the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg, Germany. Dr Kasper gained clinical and research experience in psychiatry at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany, the Psychiatric Department of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, the Clinical Psychobiology Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland/USA, and the Psychiatric Department of the University of Bonn, Germany; in neurology at the Neurological Department of the University of Heidelberg in Mannheim; and psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic training at the Ausbildungsinstitut für Psychotherapie und Psychoanalyse in Heidelberg/Mannheim, Germany