Enhancing CBT Impact Through Cultural Folk Tales: Sanogenics and Salutogenics as Partners to CBT with Children

This study examines whether Ukrainian folk tales can serve as a resource to foster sanogenic potential in children, thereby enhancing their mental health in educational and therapeutic contexts, particularly within the framework of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). By focusing on characters from the “Wise Nightingale” folk tale collection, available in both Ukrainian and Slovak, we explored whether these characters embody traits associated with sanogenic thinking, which closely align with core CBT principles such as cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, behavioral activation, and problem-solving. The findings indicate that the main characters exhibit key sanogenic thinking traits, suggesting that these folk tales could serve as culturally relevant tools in therapeutic interventions to improve children’s mental health and resilience, especially in the context of war and displacement. The study also presents practical implications for integrating these folk tales into CBT frameworks and offer recommendations on how to apply them in therapeutic settings. © 2025 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.