This book offers a holistic, integrative, resource oriented, and preventive perspective on psychotherapy, psychiatry, and psychology. There is great urgency in developing resources and potential in our patients, not only in freeing them from their disorders. Pandemics, wars, international terrorism, climate catastrophes, escalating nationalism in numerous countries, economic crises, a pervasive distrust of governments, institutions, and even fellow citizens, along with a surge in addictive behavior towards social media, just to name a few major factors, have contributed to a notable increase in mental disorders, the prescription of psychotropic drugs, suicidality, loneliness, and depression.
The fully revised and expanded second edition brings together 76 authors from 19 countries and 5 continents, who collectively share their experiences in the clinical application of positive mental health across more than 55 chapters. Twenty-two new chapters have been added, addressing emerging topics and contemporary issues. These include insights into practicing psychotherapy in Ukraine and Ethiopia, countries deeply affected by wars; multiple chapters dedicated to trauma; the Chinese perspective on navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects; understanding the LGBTQ+ community; the experience of online therapy since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic; and exploration of disorders such as autism, chronic pain, death and grieving, and suicide. All authors are practicing psychotherapists in their respective countries, providing firsthand accounts from their daily experiences. Additionally, all 34 chapters from the first edition have been thoroughly updated to ensure the content remains current and relevant. It remains the only international textbook which brings together positive psychiatry, positive psychotherapy, and positive psychology.
Positive Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychology: Clinical Applications for Positive Mental Health will be of interest to psychiatrists, psychotherapists, 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.
Dr. Erick Messias was born and raised in Brazil, where he completed medical school and practiced family medicine in rural areas before moving to Baltimore for residency training. In 2001, he completed a psychiatry residency at the University of Maryland, and he completed preventive medicine training 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 graduation he has held academic positions at his alma mater in Brazil, and later in Georgia and Arkansas where he was medical director of the Walker Family Clinic and responsible for the House Staff Mental Health Service at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock. Dr. Messias served as VP and Medical Director for Beacon Health Options, overseeing the mental health care received by Arkansas Medicaid recipients.
Dr. Messias has over 50 publications in scientific journals, has published several book chapters, and has edited a volume on schizophrenia for psychiatrists and a textbook on Positive Psychiatry, Psychology and Psychotherapy. Dr. Messias also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affair for the UAMS College of Medicine and Program Director for the Baptist-UAMS psychiatry residency program, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Messias is currently the Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Dr. Hamid Peseschkian is a German board-certified specialist in psychiatry, neurology, and psychotherapy, and an internationally recognized expert in transcultural and humanistic psychodynamic psychotherapy. He serves as the Academic and Managing Director of the Wiesbaden Academy of Psychotherapy (Wiesbaden, Germany), where he also leads the psychotherapy residency program, and is the Medical Director of the Wiesbaden Psychotherapy Center.
As President of the World Association for Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy (WAPP), Dr. Peseschkian plays a key role in advancing global mental health education across more than 60 countries. He is a European Certified Psychotherapist (EAP), an International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and an International Associate of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). His additional affiliations include the Council of the World Federation for Psychotherapy (WFP) and the German Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (DFT), where he holds honorary membership. He also serves as Senior Adjunct Faculty for psychiatry and psychotherapy training in Hesse, Germany.
With over three decades of clinical, academic, and international teaching experience, Dr. Peseschkian has trained thousands of psychotherapists worldwide. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. His professional interests include transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy education, stress management, and intercultural competence.
He earned his M.D. from the University of Mainz in 1987, followed by a doctorate in medicine in 1988 and a postdoctoral research degree in 1999.
