Hans-Werner Gessmann

Since February 2012, he has been a professor of systemic family therapy and humanistic psychodrama at the Moscow State Pedagogical Psychological University (MGPPU) [ru] . With the beginning of 2013 Gessmann is a visiting professor at the State University Smolensk. Here he teaches Humanistic Psychodrama. In the same year Gessmann receives a call to the Chair for Humanistic Psychodrama at the Southeast University in Nanjing province Jiansu, one of the oldest universities in China. He is one of the 30 most influential psychologists working today. In September 2017, Hans-Werner Gessmann introduced group psychotherapy in Azerbaijan for the first time. 141 psychotherapists from the country took part in the event in Baku. 2019 Member of the International Organizing Committee of the VI. International Scientific and practical Conference at the State Krasnoyarsk Medical University Prof. V.F. Volno-Yasenetzky.

In April 2011 it was announced he would be the director of the International Centre for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy [ru] (ICCPP) at the governmental University Kostroma with a focus on psychotherapy training and research, particularly humanistic psychodrama and systemic family therapy.

Gessmann teaches clinical psychology in the faculty of social psychology of the State University Kostroma [ru] Kostroma (KSU) since 2007 and is a professor of general and developmental psychology in the governmental Academy of Social Administration Moscow (ASOU).

In 1986, Gessmann founded Germany's first home-based sleep laboratory with the Department of Sleep Medicine. From 1998 to 2002, under his guidance, the tongue muscle training with the registered trademark ZMT was developed as an alternative treatment against sleep apnea.

After introduction of the test for medical study courses (TMS, colloquially also medicine test) 1986 this was reconstructed for training in the original by Gessmann several times. These training versions are published under the title Ü-TMS.

Gessmann developed and has taught humanistic psychodrama since 1979 as a new form of psychodrama. It became an integral part of humanistic psychology. Gessmann moved the collective action and nature of the people at the center of the therapeutic ethic. Faith, love, hope, and the idea of a human community are essential to meaningful humanistic psychodrama. Intuitive look for detecting the wholeness of a thing, the dialectical conception of polarities, the renunciation of absolute authority, take decisive influence on the image and life of man. The goals and methods of classical psychodrama were necessarily re-evaluated and described. This led to a fundamental change in international psychodrama practice. Gessmann is a member of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama as well as the International Association of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama since 1977.

Gessmann received a doctorate in 1976 by his work about causation factors of Dyslexia. He is the founder of humanistic psychodrama and adopted in the same year for the first time psychodrama with hypnosis in the context of sexual dysfunctions. He also established humanistic psychodrama in the field of child psychotherapy. In the early 80s he began making film-documentations about complete group-psychotherapy-sessions in European countries. He is the publisher of book series and the International Journal of Humanistic Psychodrama. Gessmann is one of the few empirical researchers in the field of psychodrama and has published over 180 articles on psychological topics. Standards continued his research on the method of doubling from 1996. He is the only author in the German-speaking area, who handled this issue fundamentally and scientifically, including translations of the complete source texts from English.

In 1973 he founded the Psychotherapeutic Institute Bergerhausen (PIB) [de] in Duisburg and in 1977 nearby Kerpen, Germany a European training center now for more than 1500 psychotherapists.

Hans-Werner Gessmann (born 24 March 1950, in Duisburg) is a German psychologist, founder of humanistic psychodrama and university teacher in Russia.