The founder of Positive Psychotherapy, Nossrat Peseschkian , was an Iranian-born German certified psychiatrist, neurologist and psychotherapist.
He was inspired in the late s and early s by different sources, persons and developments:. In the s Nossrat Peseschkian set up his own psychiatric practice in Wiesbaden, Gemany. Free from external constraints, he was able to work with patients during the next thirty years in his own therapeutic style and develop it further.
This ultimately led to the development of Positive Psychotherapy. In the s, Nossrat Peseschkian started to give lectures and continuing education for doctors, which was recognized as psychotherapeutic continuing education by the medical board of Hesse. At the same time the first of his publications appeared. The medical board of Hesse gave the authorization for the continuing education in psychotherapy for physicians. Nossrat Peseschkian began to give lectures and seminars intensively beyond the borders of Germany during the s which would lead him and his wife, Manije, to more than 60 countries on all five continents.
Among other things it presents a structured, psychodynamic model of illness and a five step process of psychosomatic treatment. Positive Psychotherapy attracted great interest in the recently changing countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which lie not only geographically but often also psychologically between East and West. More than 30 centers, beginning with the first in in Kazan, Russia, and the first National Associations for Positive Psychotherapy in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania were established.
The trainings in Positive Psychotherapy became more systematised from on, curricula were set up for basic and advanced trainings in Germany and abroad. Positive Psychotherapy has moved into areas outside medicine, primarily into school and university education, into management training and coaching. In the Second World Conference for Positive Psychotherapy in Wiesbaden hosted guests and delegates from around the world including Rick Snyder, who later edited the first Handbook of Positive Psychology.
