How I work

 

For me, therapy does not begin with diagnoses or questionnaires. It begins with someone revealing themselves and what is revealed being held. My work is thoughtful and calm, but not too cautious. I listen carefully. I ask questions when things get uncomfortable. I tolerate silence and difficult feelings without classifying or working through them. And I honestly say what I perceive—even if that means offering a perspective that may be uncomfortable at first.

 

The difficult thing about expressing feelings is often less the feeling itself than the unfamiliarity of showing it to another person. For me, this is precisely what constitutes the humility of therapeutic work: that something can unfold in this space that is not visible in everyday life.

 

What I do not perceive as my task: optimizing, giving advice, solving problems. What I enable: a space where resonance can arise—with what is really there. Clients often describe the atmosphere here as a mixture of warmth and clarity.

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How to be a therapist

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After completing my degree in psychology in Konstanz and Vienna, I initially entered the field of youth and adult psychiatry as part of my additional training in clinical and health psychology. What I saw there had a lasting impact on me: people who were often more managed than supported in the system. “Maintenance therapies” that in some cases could only achieve very little. I quickly realized that my work had to start where change was still possible—before suffering became chronic.

 

This led me to occupational health promotion and individual coaching in 2015. I worked with companies and organizations for eight years. In my work, I often encountered highly functional people who seemed to be doing everything right and yet were exhausted.

 

At the same time, I deepened my mindfulness practice. What began as a training method became an embodied attitude over the years – shaped by intensive training with Béatrice Heller in Zurich, retreats with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli, and daily practice over more than ten years. For me, mindfulness is not a tool. It is the basis for how I am in space – open, present, not knowing, ready for what is there and what is to come.

 

Starting in 2021, I combined both modalities: the systemic perspective on relationships and roles with the body-oriented, experiential work of mindfulness practice. Further training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) and Focusing provided the additional focus and precision needed to work with intense emotions in relationships – not as a technique, but in a living process.

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One fundamental belief 

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Clients who decide to seek support, reflection, and time for themselves in a professional setting have most likely already recognized a whole series of patterns and made various attempts at change. Every person is already on their journey and doing what they can at every moment. The frustration that the burden remains unchanged deserves recognition first, not another to-do list on top.

 

I am convinced that much of what burdens people cannot be changed through reflection and insight alone. Patterns that have developed in relationships need emotionally secure relationship experiences in order to change. That is why the therapeutic relationship in my work is not a means to an end, but the place where change happens.

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What interests me particularly is the question of how cultural demands—roles, pressure to perform, and experienced constraints—become personal suffering. Exhaustion, shame, the feeling of never being good enough—these are not just individual problems. They are responses to a world that normalizes constant self-monitoring.

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What matters beyond the practice

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Not everything that has shaped me therapeutically is in a CV. The pandemic years of 2020–2021 have challenged me personally and shaped me as a psychologist. During this time, I volunteered to help run the BDP Corona Hotline, provided psychological support to refugee aid workers in Berlin, and experienced the gaps in the psychosocial care system firsthand. There is a lot to be said for directing our focus, energy, and attention to where it is most helpful and effective. Increasing social tensions and upheavals are challenges that can obviously only be overcome through solidarity (climate change, pandemics, war(s), disasters, changes in the world of work and the economy, etc.).

 

These experiences have shaped my practice: making psychological counseling and therapy more accessible. That is why I work with an individual cost concept and keep a number of places available at reduced rates – for people in challenging life situations. Because I believe that good therapeutic relationship work should not be exclusive.