Dr. Thomas Sobanski has studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Marburg and at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Subsequently, he absolved his specialist training at the university hospitals of Würzburg, Bonn and Freiburg, Germany. During this period his main research subjects were therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), sleep medicine, and anxiety disorders. After his approval as a medical specialist for psychiatry and psychotherapy, he moved to the University of Jena (Germany) where he established a scientific working group focusing on neuroimaging studies in anxiety spectrum disorders and major depression (MD). Major findings of this research were e.g. structural brain alterations in panic disorder (PD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as cortical inefficiency in MD. A further research subject was the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy in PD, MD, and expecially in suicidal behavior disorder (SBD). In 2002, Dr. Thomas Sobanski became head physician of the Department of Psychiatry at the Thüringen-Kliniken in Saalfeld (Germany). Since then, a close cooperation between Jena and Saalfeld has developed which resulted in a number of jointly performed studies.