For hundreds of years, psychology has looked into the dysfunctions and symptoms of the mind. It's only over the last few decades that the field has started to pay attention to what constitutes a functional and content life. Instead of using disease to understand health, positive psychology studies the components of a good life and helps people not only avoid mental health problems but develop happiness. The work done in positive psychology is now at a point where applications are being developed in positive psychotherapy and extended to those with psychiatric diagnoses in positive psychiatry. While these fields are a recent development they hold the promise of helping all of us live a fulfilled life.
Medicine in general, and psychiatry in particular, suffers from a worldview that is symptom- and deficit-oriented. By adopting a positive approach, psychology, psychotherapy, and psychiatry add a more holistic, integrative, resource oriented, and preventive perspective. There is great urgency in developing resources and potentials in our patients, not only freeing them from their disorders.
Psychiatrists and psychotherapists alike are incorporating these positive tools into their practices with positive clinical outcomes. Standing on the shoulders of pioneers like Nossrat Peseschkian, in positive psychotherapy, and Dilip Jeste, in positive psychiatry, this textbook is the first to bring together these innovations in one volume that will serve as an excellent resource for medical professionals looking to reap the benefits gained by the studies in these areas. Currently, the majority of texts that are available are targeting psychologists and researchers, whereas this book seeks to use positive psychology as the foundation on which the clinical applications are built.
As such, this book will be of interest to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals. It may be used in educating a new generation of mental health professionals in these tenets that are expanding the reach of psychology, the practice of psychotherapy, and the scope of psychiatry.
Erick Messias, MD, MPH, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Hamid Peseschkian, MD, DM, DMSc, IDFAPA
Director
Wiesbaden Academy of Psychotherapy
President
World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy
Consuelo Cagande, MD, DFAPA, DFAACAP
Division Chief, Community Care and Wellness, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Dr. Messias was born and raised in Brazil, where he completed medical school and practiced family medicine in rural areas, before moving to the US in 1997 and becoming an American citizen in 2014.
Dr. Messias completed his residency training in psychiatry at the University of Maryland in 2001, and in preventive medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2003. While at Hopkins, he also received a master's in public health and a PhD in psychiatric epidemiology. Since then, Dr. Messias has been practicing psychiatry in private practice and academic institutions in both Georgia and Arkansas. From 2010 to 2015, he was the medical director of the Walker Family Clinic and the House Staff Mental Health Service at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, where he is currently the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs. He has also published several papers in scientific journals on risk factors for depression and suicide, as well as schizophrenia and psychiatric epidemiology.
Dr. Peseschkian is Academic and Managing Director of the Wiesbaden Academy of Psychotherapy (WIAP), Head of its psychotherapy residency program, and Medical Director of the Wiesbaden Psychotherapy Center in Wiesbaden, Germany. He is the President of the World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy (WAPP), and Board member of the German Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (DFT/GAPP).
Dr. Peseschkian is triple German Board-certified and licensed specialist in psychiatry, neurology and psychotherapy, an International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and an International Associate of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). He is a Senior Adjunct Faculty member for residency trainings in psychiatry and psychotherapy of the State Medical Chamber in Hesse (Germany).
Dr. Peseschkian received his professional degree as a Medical Doctor (M.D.) from the Medical Faculty of the University of Mainz (Germany) in 1987, a research doctorate degree in medicine (Dr. med., Doctor of Medicine) from the University of Mainz in 1988, and a postdoctoral academic research degree (Dr. med. habil., Doctor of Medical Sciences) from the Federal Bekhterev Psychoneurological Scientific Research Institute, St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1999.
Dr Cagande is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Cooper Medical School of Rowan UNIVERSITY (CMSRU). She is a General and Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. She was Residency Program Director and Clerkship Director at CMSRU. Dr Cagande received her medical doctor degree from Cebu Institute of Medicine, Philippines. She did her Psychiatry residency at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/Cooper University Hospital and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, Maryland. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). She has published and presented nationally and internationally in areas of hidden curriculum, faculty development, physician wellness, childhood anxiety and psychosis, youth suicide and cultural psychiatry.
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