Suzie Pileggi Pawelski (C' 08) Explains How Relationships Can Make Us Stronger During COVID-19

/
Suzie Pileggi Pawelski (C' 08) Explains How Relationships Can Make Us Stronger During COVID-19

Suzie Pileggi Pawelski began contributing to the field of positive psychology while she was still a MAPP student in 2007. That year, she was invited to write a daily interview column for the newly launched IPPA (International Positive Psychology Association), and she continued to write this column for over a decade. Today, she’s become a sought-out expert on positive relationships, which she believes are fundamental to thriving during COVID-19.

Read More

A Burgeoning Business with Bees: Carin Zinter (C’11) Applies Positivity Psychology to Beekeeping

/
A Burgeoning Business with Bees: Carin Zinter (C’11) Applies Positivity Psychology to Beekeeping

When I think about the “B’s” in positive psychology, I immediately think of the A – B – C’s of resilience, Barb Fredrickson and Biswas-Diener, and the unfortunate grade on my last theory paper. I recently learned that there is a new and exciting “B” buzzing around positive psychology these days: the honey bee!

Read More

Lunch with Psychology Giants Beck and Seligman: Revelations and Tools for Uncertain Times

/
Lunch with Psychology Giants Beck and Seligman: Revelations and Tools for Uncertain Times

In a historic session on April 18, 2020, Martin E. P. Seligman, PhD and Aaron T. Beck, MD welcomed 260 Zoom guests to join their monthly lunch and discuss the evolution of their respective practices and how psychology practitioners can help people cope during COVID-19.

Read More

Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

/
Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

Graduates of UPenn’s MAPP program know well that social connection is a powerful and necessary ingredient for well-being. At the MAPP Summit last October, students were treated to a visit from the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has made it his mission to spread the message that lack of human connection poses a significant public health risk to our nation. In fact, lack of connection, experienced as loneliness, can affect our health in profoundly negative ways.

Read More

Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

/
Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

It was a spark of an idea in the first days of the “lockdown” into physical distancing instigated by the COVID-19 crisis: share positive psychology with the public to counteract what was beginning to feel like a collective emotional tailspin. Penn MAPP alumni Sharon Danzger (C’18), Lisa Sansom (C’10), Senia Maymin (C’06) and Sean Doyle (C’07) got busy and organized Strategies to Thrive, a forum for Penn MAPP alums to present a series of webinars, available free to the public. Now drawing to the end of a 42-day outpouring of information and know-how, the positivity inherent in the 70 presentations has been viewed 5,869 times and counting.

Read More

Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

/
Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

On Saturday, April 4th, the Penn MAPP community held an unprecedented video call with founder Dr. Martin Seligman, affectionately known to MAPPsters as Marty.  This “Massive Meet-Up with Marty” brought together more than 180 MAPP alumni and current students to offer one another support, to learn about alumni efforts to address the COVID19 crisis and to find ways to collaborate and build on these efforts.

Read More

Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

/
Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

We are in the middle of a world-wide crisis as humans face the threat of COVID-19. Is this the right time to write? I answer this question for myself by thinking about two audiences.

  • The people whose anxiety and uncertainty might be eased by what I have to say.

  • Our children, grandchildren, and others in the future who may wonder, “What was it like in the middle of a global pandemic? What did you do? What worked? How did you feel? What helped you get through it?”

Read More

When the Going Gets Tough, MAPPsters Get Going

/
When the Going Gets Tough, MAPPsters Get Going

Over the past three weeks, as our world underwent a dramatic, unprecedented transformation to “social distancing” in the face of the COVID19 pandemic, The University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology alumni community, affectionately known to one another as MAPPsters, were mobilizing.

Read More

MAPPsters Unite at IPPA’s 6th World Congress, Melbourne 2019

/
MAPPsters Unite at IPPA’s 6th World Congress, Melbourne 2019

For four days in July, 2019, more than 1700 delegates from 60 countries around the world came together in Melbourne, Australia, for the 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology (WCPP). Academics, researchers, educators, practitioners, change agents, students, and positive psychology experts gathered at the Melbourne Convention Center to exchange ideas, learn from one another, and to advance the field.

Read More