Positive Psychotherapy

25/05/2026

This paper explores the integration of (PPT after N. Peseschkian, since 1977) within Traditional Chinese Medicine psychosomatic clinics, demonstrating how psychological and medical approaches can be combined in clinical practice.

The findings demonstrate that therapeutic effectiveness is enhanced when internal capacities, meaning-making processes, and mind–body connections are addressed within a unified framework.
Core insights from the study are presented in this carousel.

For a more comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and clinical perspectives, the full article is available in Journal:
🔗 http://doi.org/10.52982/lkj287

20/05/2026

🌍 WAPP Delegation at the Annual APA Meeting in San Francisco 🇺🇸 May, 2026

Every year, the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association brings together more than 7,000 participants and many of the leading voices in psychiatry and mental health from across the Western world to exchange research, ideas, and professional experience.

We are happy to once again welcome the participation of the World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy (WAPP) delegation, which presented this year’s Highlighting Topic session:

“Humor and Balance as Therapeutic Resources. Tools and Techniques in Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy”

Presenters:
• Hamid Peseschkian (Germany)
• Ewa Dоbiałа (Poland)
• Iryna Norkina (Netherlands)
• Nataliia Marchenko (Ukraine)

Thank you to our colleagues for representing (PPT after Peseschkian, since 1977), sharing their knowledge and experience, and contributing to the international professional dialogue. 🤝

19/05/2026

Dear colleagues,
This Friday we invite you for a reflective workshop dedicated to exploring the group as a dynamic and responsive system:
“Group as a field for the transformation of conflict and collective trauma”

📅 Date: 22 May 2026
🕰 Time: 17:00-19:00 CEST (Berlin time)
🌍 Language: Ukrainian with simultaneous English translation
🎓 CPD: 2 credits

Within a process-oriented perspective, the group can be seen as a space where both personal and collective processes unfold, including tensions, implicit dynamics, and polarities that often remain outside individual awareness. Working with these phenomena opens possibilities for meaning-making and transformation.
Facilitation will be approached as a practice of carefully engaging with the emerging group field, sensing signals, following processes as they arise, and supporting the development of the system in conditions of uncertainty.

Participation:
🔹 Free for WAPP members
🔹 5 EUR for non-members or lapsed members

👉 Registration required: https://wapp.member365.org/public/event/details/0ab197731a8c3683f5fc31738647ca94f450088d/1
📩 Zoom link will be sent after registration

What to expect:
• Brief theoretical framing
• Experiential group exploration
• Working with tension and polarities
• Space for reflection and integration

👩🏼 Facilitator: Viktoria Lisovska
Process-oriented and systemic facilitator, medical doctor, and psychotherapist with 16 years of experience. Integrates body-oriented practices and trauma work (EMDR), working with groups as holistic systems where conflict can unfold and transform.

Join us for a thoughtful space to explore how group processes can support awareness, connection, and transformation.

18/05/2026

🌍 Positive Psychotherapy around the world: Help us preserve our shared history

Next year, Positive Psychotherapy will celebrate its 50th anniversary since its foundation by Nossrat Peseschkian in 1977. To mark this important milestone, WAPP has launched a large international history project dedicated to documenting the development of Positive Psychotherapy across different countries and regions of the world.

Several historical articles and materials from different countries have already been prepared and published, and we would now like to continue expanding this work together with our international community. Our goal is to collect and preserve information about the origins, growth, milestones, and unique national pathways of Positive Psychotherapy in all regions where PPT is present today.

We warmly invite all national PPT associations, centers, and colleagues involved in the development of Positive Psychotherapy to contribute to this project by preparing and sharing historical information about their country or organization.

To make this process easier, we have prepared a convenient collection form with guiding questions and suggestions.

📚 The details, contacts, and the form for submitting materials can be found here:
https://www.positum.org/project/history-of-ppt/

Thank you for helping us preserve and honor the living history of worldwide 💙

Our goal is to collect and preserve information about the origins, growth, milestones, and unique national pathways of Positive Psychotherapy in all regions where PPT is present today.

14/05/2026

Some meetings happen once in a decade

The previous World Congress took place in 2019. The next one… may happen only in the 2030s. And in a very different world.

In a decade marked by uncertainty, wars, distance, economic challenges, and rapid change, international congresses have taken on a new meaning - reminding us how important real human connection and professional community truly are.

For many of us, this may be the defining event of the 2020s.
WAPP World Congress is more than lectures.
It becomes part of the history and memory of our method. People will later say: ‘Were you in Montenegro in 2026?’

Years after participants remember the conversations after sessions, meeting colleagues from dozens of countries, shared ideas, emotions, laughter, sunsets by the sea, and the feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves.

If you have been thinking:
“Maybe next time…”
- this is the next time.

8th World Congress on Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy
📍 Budva, Montenegro
📅 11-16 October 2026
🔗 wapp2026.org

13/05/2026

In March 2026, the European Association for Psychotherapy presented an updated definition of psychotherapy. As the World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy is a member of the EAP, we are glad to share this definition with our professional community.

“Psychotherapy is a distinct, scientifically grounded profession and clinical practice within the mental health field, dedicated to the alleviation of emotional-psychological, psychosomatic, relational, and behavioural distress, including difficulties that are persistent or developmentally rooted. It constitutes a dynamic, holistic, relational, and process-oriented form of treatment, grounded in a therapeutic alliance and guided by the individual’s goals, values, and social context. Psychotherapy aims not only to reduce distress, but also to strengthen psychological resources, support personality functioning, and enhance long-term quality of life. Encompassing psychodynamic, humanistic, systemic, cognitive-behavioural, and integrative orientations, psychotherapy is characterised by its depth, breadth, and clinical responsibility in addressing complex and enduring difficulties. As a professional identity and practice, it is carried out by specifically trained psychotherapists whose competence is formed through specialised education, supervised clinical experience, and sustained self-reflective practice and ethical responsibility.”

We believe that clear professional definitions are important not only for the development of psychotherapy as a profession, but also for protecting quality standards, ethical responsibility, and public understanding of psychotherapeutic work worldwide.

12/05/2026

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

Here are the numbers that remind us why this work matters:
- More than 1 billion people worldwide are currently living with a mental health disorder, that’s roughly 1 in 7 people on the planet. Pharmacally
- Su***de is the third leading cause of death among people aged 15-29 globally. It does not only affect high-income countries, it is a worldwide reality, present in every region.
- 91% of people living with depression around the world are unable to access care. The greatest barrier is not distance or cost alone, in many cases, it is stigma.
- Governments spend a median of just 2% of their health budgets on mental health, a figure that has not changed since 2017. Meanwhile, the gap between need and care grows wider every year.
- Nearly half of all mental health disorders begin before the age of 18. Early support is not a privilege, it is a necessity.
- 1 human is needed to start the conversation. To ask someone how they really are. To break the silence, wherever you are in the world.

is .
We believe in healing that honors the whole person: their culture, their strengths, their story.
This May, and every month psychotherapists, consultants, and psychiatrists are here. Reach out, or help someone you know take that first step.

- World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy (WAPP)

05/05/2026

“Group as a field for the transformation of conflict and collective trauma”

📅 Date: 22 May 2026
🕰 Time: 17:00-19:00 CEST (Berlin time)
🌍 Language: Ukrainian with simultaneous English translation
🎓 CPD: 2 credits

We are pleased to invite you to a reflective workshop dedicated to exploring the group as a dynamic and responsive system.
Within a process-oriented perspective, the group can be seen as a space where both personal and collective processes unfold, including tensions, implicit dynamics, and polarities that often remain outside individual awareness. Working with these phenomena opens possibilities for meaning-making and transformation.
Facilitation will be approached as a practice of carefully engaging with the emerging group field, sensing signals, following processes as they arise, and supporting the development of the system in conditions of uncertainty.

Participation:
🔹 Free for WAPP members
🔹 5 EUR for non-members or lapsed members
👉 Registration required: https://wapp.member365.org/public/event/details/0ab197731a8c3683f5fc31738647ca94f450088d/1
📩 Zoom link will be sent after registration

What to expect:
• Brief theoretical framing
• Experiential group exploration
• Working with tension and polarities
• Space for reflection and integration

👩🏼 Facilitator: Viktoria Lisovska
Process-oriented and systemic facilitator, medical doctor, and psychotherapist with 16 years of experience. Integrates body-oriented practices and trauma work (EMDR), working with groups as holistic systems where conflict can unfold and transform.

Join us for a thoughtful space to explore how group processes can support awareness, connection, and transformation.

02/05/2026

Abstract Submission & Early Registration Deadline Extended!
👉 Details & Registration: https://wapp2026.org/

The 8th World Congress of Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy is delighted to announce that the deadline for abstract submissions and the early registration to the has been extended!

Due to the ongoing global socioeconomic challenges, the Organizing Committee has decided to extend the abstract submission and early registration deadline. This decision aims to provide additional time and flexibility for participants who may be affected by current circumstances.

Please note that the Abstract Submission Deadline will be final, and no further extensions will be granted. We kindly encourage all prospective authors to ensure that their submissions are completed and submitted by this date.

🗓 Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 June 2026
🗓 Early Registration Deadline: 1 September 2026

30/04/2026

🌍 Monthly Highlights | April 2026

April has been a month of steady growth and meaningful exchange in the work of the World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy (WAPP).

✨ 35 new members joined our global community - welcome!
For our current members, a gentle reminder to renew your membership for the current year if you haven’t done so yet. It is thanks to your contributions that we are able to continue developing the method and supporting the professional practice of our community, as reflected in these monthly updates.

📝 This month marked the submission period for the Summer Issue of .
We are glad to see so many colleagues sharing thoughtful and inspiring research. The next stage now begins: peer review, revisions, and the intensive work behind the upcoming issue.

💬 We also held an insightful online meeting with the authors of the collective monograph
“Positive Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychology” (2nd ed.).
Dozens of contributors presented their work, exploring theory and applications of across different settings.
If you missed it, the recording is available on the “Positive Psychotherapy” YouTube channel.

📚 A major highlight this month: for the first time, the English edition of the updated and extended biography of Nossrat Peseschkian has been published:
“A Fruitful Life Between East and West: The Life and Work of Nossrat Peseschkian, Founder of Positive Psychotherapy.”
Available via the WAPP shop and Portal and on Amazon (paperback, hardcover, Kindle).

🤝 Behind the scenes, WAPP committees and working groups continue their active work.
In April, new structures held their first meetings — including the Research Committee and the Working Group “PPT in Asia,” bringing together colleagues from across the Asian region.

⏳ The Congress is approaching.
If you have been postponing your registration, now is the moment — submit your abstract, register, or both: https://wapp2026.org/

🌱 We continue preparing for upcoming events, new releases, and shared projects.