Positive Psychology in Germany – where are you?

In terms of age, Positive Psychology is now in its teenage years. Most of the stuff that´s been happening so far – be it research or practice – is located in in the USA (but PP is pretty well-developed in other Anglo-Saxon cultures such as the UK and Australia as well).

But what about my Germany, my mother country? Well, Germans in general are known for a lot of sought-after character traits – but we may just not be the perfect audience for Positive Psychology. At the end of the day, we´re not really the shiny happy people, right? And the more we need PP…maybe.

There are a few German PP researchers out there, but typically, they tend to work in the U.S., such as Matthias Mehl. I´m the third German MAPPster. The first one is Johannes Eichstaedt who is now a Ph.D. student at Penn´s Positive Psychology Center. The second one is Judith Mangelsdorf who now pursues a Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

A couple of months ago, the German (-speaking) Association of Positive Psychology was founded (is also associated with IPPA, the International Positive Psychology Association). In addition, a lot of information can be found via www.seligmaneurope.com.

If you are in Germany and interested in Positive Psychology – please reach out to me…

Picture source