Topic: “Positive Psychology – from a Critical Perspective”
When: 5 June 2025 from 19:00 till 20:30 CEST / Berlin time
Language: English with simultaneous Bulgarian, Polish, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian translation

#MeetTheExpert series of online events, where WAPP invites speakers from different backgrounds to share useful insights on topics that matter in our work.

FREE PARTICIPATION

We’re starting something new at WAPP — a regular Meet the Expert session, where we invite speakers from different backgrounds to share useful insights on topics that matter in our work.

Our first speaker is Dr. Senta Brandt, a psychologist and social scientist who wrote her PhD on Critical Positive Psychology — and published it as a book. On June 5, she’ll give a talk called:“Positive Psychology – from a Critical Perspective”. She’ll speak about how Positive Psychology (as developed by Seligman and others) became what it is today — including its connections to institutions like the military and education systems — and how it’s different from Positive Psychotherapy.

If you’ve ever had to explain the difference between Positive Psychology and Positive Psychotherapy — or wanted to understand it better yourself — this talk is for you. It’s also for anyone who wants to take a deeper look at what’s behind the “science of well-being” and how it influences the way we think about mental health and resilience.

About the Session:

This online presentation offers a historically grounded and epistemologically informed critique of Positive Psychology (PP), focusing on the version promoted by Martin Seligman and colleagues since the early 2000s. While often presented as a scientific turn toward well-being and human flourishing, PP operates with implicit ontological and methodological assumptions that merit closer examination.Based on an in-depth reconstruction of key founding texts, speeches, and networks, Dr. Brandt examine the epistemic self-understanding of PP as a “science of well-being,” its methodological orientation toward quantification, and its institutional entanglements with policy, military, education, and business sectors.Special attention is paid to the contrast between Positive Psychology and Positive Psychotherapy as developed by Nossrat Peseschkian – highlighting fundamental differences between the two approaches.The analysis is informed by the methodology of relational hermeneutics, emphasizing perspectivity, comparison, and critical reflection on the cultural embeddedness of psychological knowledge. The talk invites a differentiated view on PP – not as mere “happiology,” but as a complex discourse shaping the ways we think about mental health, resilience, and human potential.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Senta Brandt, M.Sc. Psychologist, Social Scientist & Author www.sentabrandt.comDr. Senta Brandt studied Psychology at the University of Vienna and earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences at the Chair of Social Theory and Social Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum. Her doctoral research focused on a critical examination of Positive Psychology and was published as a book: Brandt, S. (2024). Kritik der Positiven Psychology (Critique of Positive Psychology). Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag. She lives currently in Munich, Germany, and is in psychoanalytical training.
Warm regards,

WAPP Head Office