Somat Tapanya, Ph.D.

Sombat Tapanya received his PhD in psychology from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He worked as a clinical psychologist at the Somdet Chaopraya Psychiatric Institute in Bangkok between 1972 and 1984, and as assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, during 1985 - 2011.

Dr. Tapanya’s research interest is in the area of violence prevention and peace education in children and youths. He has conducted research projects on positive discipline and bullying prevention through a grant from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. In addition, he is also on a research team with Duke University on the effects of parenting behavior on children’s adjustment, with Temple University on adolescents’ decision-making, with University of Manitoba on positive discipline, and another research project on youth resilience with Dalhousie University in Canada. In 2016, he completed a 3-month training program on Peace Education with Rotary International at Chulalongkorn University. More recently, during 2019-2020 he has been a member of the research team with University of Oxford and Unicef Thailand on parenting skills training for low-income families in north-eastern Thailand.

As a psychotherapist Dr. Tapanya has been trained in Gestalt Therapy and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy. He has been certified by EMDR Europe as trainer of EMDR.