Impuls 2: Persönlichkeitsentwicklung und Personal Growth

Sara Canna is an experienced Human Resources professional with extensive international experience in leading large-scale projects in the areas of: Talent Management and Development, Learning, Emotional Intelligence, Staff Engagement and Organizational Development. She has over 20 years’ experience in Global Talent Management and Development within international and multicultural organizational environments; she is a certified coach and career counselor with a specialization in Emotional Intelligence assessment and development. Her main passion is supporting individuals and teams to enhance their potential by tapping into their inner resources; developing and growing their knowledge, skills and competencies in order to enable them to excel in their performance, feel fulfilled and empowered. She currently works at the World Health Organization and is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Caroline has had a multifaceted journey in her road to researching and presenting on university student resilience. She is regarded as the leading global authority on theatre audiences through her oft-cited book Audience as Performer: the changing role of theatre audiences in the twenty-first century (Routledge, 2016), and prior to entering academia, Caroline worked as a professional actor on New York stages winning a Drama League Award.

Caroline gives keynotes globally, has written three books and numerous articles on topics that range from the mental health of university students to psychological relationships in the theatre. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, for example, Caroline and Christian Heim theorized on, devised and implemented an innovative mental health program for Caroline’s university students. The aim was to build their resilience during social isolation and significant escalation of their anxiety and depression levels. Findings from this work has been integrated into Caroline’s teaching and research articles, and the program continues to be taught through her unique approach to embodied learning.

Her most recent project has been a global study spanning five years on Resilient Relationships, co-authored with psychiatrist Christian Heim. It is the largest cross-sectional global study on resilience in long-term relationships to date: 1402 coupled individuals were surveyed or interviewed from 52 countries.

Recent publication
Resilient Relationships: techniques for surviving hyper-individualism, social isolation and a mental health crisis. London and New York. Routledge. 2023. DOI: 10.4324/9781003263395

Christian has over 20 years of diverse experience in mental health as a clinician, researcher and speaker. His research area is preventative mental health and in this he publishes, gives international keynotes and lectures to lawyers, doctors, university students and the general public to help avoid burnout, compassion fatigue and mental illness, and to foster resilience. As a private psychiatrist, Christian subspecialized in people suffering personal trauma, particularly war-related PTSD or severe childhood sexual trauma, and in couple therapy where mental illness is prominent. As a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland he lectures to trainee doctors and psychiatrists.

Christian was a lecturer in classical music composition and analysis at the Manhattan School of Music, New York, The University of Newcastle, and the University of Wollongong where he was nominated for a teaching award. He is a Churchill Fellow having researched the use of music in hospital environments in Germany, Italy and the UK, and is a recipient of the Newton-John Award for creativity in professional practice and the Blackwell Award for Critical Reasoning in Science.

Recent publication
Resilient Relationships: techniques for surviving hyper-individualism, social isolation and a mental health crisis. London and New York. Routledge. 2023. DOI: 10.4324/9781003263395

Professor Ilona Boniwell is one of the European leaders in positive psychology, studying, researching, teaching and implementing positive psychology for over 20 years, working as an academic, but also as a consultant with private companies, education, higher education and governmental institutions.

She is a full professor of positive psychology and coaching psychology at the University of East London, co-directs the International MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology and a PhD Programme in Positive Psychology at UEL, teaches Positive Management at l’Ecole CentraleSupelec Paris and HEC, and consults around the world as a director of Positran. Her main teaching expertise lies in the areas of positive psychology and positive psychology applications, with research interests around: subjective time use, time perspective, eudaimonic well-being, measuring well-being and engagement at work, tangible tools and applications of positive psychology to business, executive coaching and education.

Ilona founded and was the first Chair of the European Network of Positive Psychology (ENPP), and was subsequently the member of its Steering Committee for many years. She organised the first European Congress of Positive Psychology in June 2002 (Winchester), starting a successful tradition of bi-annual events. She was the first Vice-Chair of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and has been continuingly the member of its Board of Directors since 2007. She is currently the Vice-President for the Francophone Association of Positive Psychology, serves on the Board of Directors of the Wellbeing Education Network (WEN) and is a co-editor of the Applied Positive Psychology Journal.

She had authored, co-authored and co-edited twelve books within the discipline of positive psychology. Ilona is the author of Positive Psychology in a Nutshell (2006, PWBC; 2016, McGraw-Hill), co-author of The Happiness Equation (2008, Adams Media), Positive Psychology: Theory, Research and Applications (2011, 2019, Open University Press), Well-Being Lessons for Secondary Schools (2012, Open University Press), co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013, Oxford University Press) and Positive Psychology Coaching in the Workplace (2021), and co-author of Motivated Adolescents (2015, Odile Jacob) and PEPS: Positive Education for Parents and Schools (2018, Leduc). She is currently working on a new book, Positive Psychology at Work in a Nutshell (forthcoming in 2022). She acted as the main consultant for and appeared in the BBC2 series The Happiness Formula (2006). Her other media work included Guardian, Times, Top Sante, Cosmopolitan and Psychologies articles, TV and radio interviews, and columns. Currently, she is consulting ARTE on the documentary about the progress of positive psychology (appearing alongside Professor Martin Seligman) and writing a monthly column for the Positive Psychology magazine.

Ilona frequently addresses psychology and professional audiences at national and international conferences, having delivered a TEDx, as well as over 300 keynotes, invited presentations and workshops. Multiple keynotes delivered range from those addressed to highly specialist audiences (e.g. International Conference for School Violence, Canada, 2018; 9th European Congress of Positive Psychology, Hungary, 2018; 5th Happiness and Well-Being Summit, Mexico, 2017; 8th Congress of the European Network of Positive Psychology, France, 2016), the 5th Australian Positive Psychology and Well-being Conference, Australia, 2016), through to many other professional groups – business leaders (e.g. EY, Luxembourg, 2021; Chanel, France, 2021; Goldman Sachs, UK, 2018), teachers (e.g., GESS Education, UAE, 2018), parents (e.g. Unilever, 2020-21), general public audiences (e.g. Action for Happiness, UK, 2014) and even children (e.g. Printemps d’Optimisme, France 2021). She gave evidence to the British and Bhutan Governments, and addressed congresses of up to 5, 000 delegates (e.g., LH Positive Economy Forum, Italy 2014).

Ilona is passionate about practical applications of positive psychology to coaching, business and education. Her clients include Club Med, L’Oreal, Microsoft, SNCF, EDF, Sanofi, Bull, Mars, Eric Bompard, Microsoft, BNP Paribas, Sanofi, Sodexo and many others. Nowadays, as a director of Positran, a boutique consultancy specialising in the applications of evidence-based methodologies to achieve lasting positive transformation, Ilona delivers advanced professional training in positive psychology. She has developed her own approach to positive psychology coaching and training and trained thousands of professionals around the world (in Japan, Singapore, China, Dubai, South Africa, Portugal, France and the UK). She further worked for the Government of Bhutan to develop a framework for happiness-based public policy at the request of the UN, as a member of the International Expert Working Group for the New Development Paradigm. She also consulted the Prime Minister’s Office of the UAE around the development of the toolkit for workplace positivity and organisational well-being assessment.

Recent Publication
Smith, W., Boniwell, I., & Green, S. (2021). Positive psychology coaching in the workplace. Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-79952-6

Norman Sieroka is full professor for theoretical philosophy at the University of Bremen and lecturer/Privatdozent for philosophy at the ETH Zurich. He studied philosophy, physics, and mathematics in Heidelberg and Cambridge and holds doctorate degrees in both, philosophy and physics. His main areas of research are philosophy of time, philosophy of perception (especially hearing), philosophy of science (especially physics) and the historiography of philosophy.