Congratulations! I am Tetyana Pysarenko,
PhD, co-founder and rector of Ukraine Sigmund Freud University.

On August 22, 2023 , our university received a license to conduct educational activities.

How it all started.

Today, the profession of psychologist has come out on top in terms of demand. The pandemic and the war have caused severe damage not only to the physical but also to the mental health of our nation.

Our profession involves constant development, training, advanced training, and reading articles by world psychologists and psychotherapists, as the world is changing rapidly, as are the processes of personal and social development.

Once, thanks to circumstances, I found myself in the right place at the right time, namely at a congress in Rome, where Alfred Pritz, PhD, president of the World Congress of Psychotherapy, professor, one of the founders and rector of Sigmund Freud University Vienna, was speaking . He spoke about the PhD program at SFU. This was the beginning of a new stage in my professional life.

I went to this program to write my dissertation, defend it, and get my degree. But besides this, I found myself in the mirror of the best university for psychology and psychotherapy in Europe, where I found a space of professionalism, respectful attitude towards students as equals – future colleagues.

Most importantly, I have learned a simple truth: you should always learn from the best professionals who easily and happily share their knowledge, answer questions, discuss, teach you to defend your opinion and dive into knowledge with passion.

I am very proud to be the first Ukrainian woman to defend her dissertation at Sigmund Freud University and to receive the proud prefix Dr. PYSARENKO.

That is why I received an offer of cooperation from them.

And in 2016, we opened the official representative office of Sigmund Freud University in Ukraine.

It was a great honor for us that prof. Alfred Pritz attended the opening in Kyiv.

Since then, we have been conducting many joint projects that help popularize psychological education in general and psychotherapy in particular.

We are especially proud of the Winter/Summer School of Psychotherapy educational project.

To date, we have held 11 of them. Now they will be held within our university.

Over seven years, more than 300 specialists have improved their skills through our training.

The idea of establishing a university where we would train professional practicing psychologists and psychotherapists had been on the surface for several years.

But the last year, the year of the terrible war, has made us realize that we have to do this immediately.

On February 24, 2022, the life of every Ukrainian was turned upside down. Most of us have known the hell of war, which we have seen and heard only from books and movies. Despair, fear, anxiety, depression, apathy, and sometimes a complete loss of the meaning of life – these are the feelings that most Ukrainians wake up with today.

Even if the war ends tomorrow, we will feel and observe its consequences for several generations to come.

That is why we decided to open Ukraine Sigmund Freud University right now, in this difficult time. Training of qualified specialists in psychology and psychotherapy is our contribution to the Victory and rebuilding a healthy nation in the future!