Ewa DOBIALA & Peter WINKLER
Abstract
‘Positive psychotherapy’ (Seligman, Rashid & Parks, 2006) is an upcoming new approach and spreading into different branches of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy. It evolved from Seligman’s Positive Psychology interventions. Both of these terms are used fairly interchangeably in the world of ‘Positive Psychology’ by researchers working in the field of divisions and aspects of Clinical Psychology. The terminology of “Positive Psychotherapy” is also known in a different context as an intervention founded by Nossrat Peseschkian in 1977: thus this term designates two significantly different approaches.
In other words, it can be stated that one single term has been used for two different methods. Efforts have been made by the World Association of Positive Psychotherapy (WAPP) towards the clinical branch of Positive Psychology to convince them to use a different term for their application in psychotherapy in order to have a better differentiation, since the term Positive Psychotherapy has been used for decades by Peseschkian’s approach. However, no agreement has been achieved.Nevertheless, Positive Psychotherapy is a scientific term, not a trademark. therefore, a better understanding of the terminology, backgrounds and specific approach features and qualities of this term could be helpful. The following article describes both approaches; differentiates between them; shows their similarities as resource-oriented approaches; and indicates their capabilities in scientific work and possible cross-approach inspirations.
Keywords:
Positive Psychotherapy, Positive Psychology Interventions, Positive Psychology, meta-theoretical approach, trans-cultural psychotherapy
International Journal of Psychotherapy: 2016, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 5 – 13
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