“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Private Practice for Psychotherapy and Counselling in Berlin – Prenzlauer Berg
Welcome!
I am happy to welcome you on my website and I would like to give you an insight to my approach to psychotherapy. If you have any questions or you would like to schedule an appointment, feel free to contact me via phone 0152 5611 6955 or, even better write me an email .
Wenn Sie die Website lieber auf deutsch lesen möchten, klicken Sie bitte hier.
My work
I am working very centered on personal needs and emotions and even though my education is rooted in classical Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), with time it has diverged more and more from set concepts and manual focused work and now has become a more client-centered apporach. Individuality is one of my top priorities in councelling and therapy. Having said that, I’ve pretty much lost my heart to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In its core, ACT tries to find a suitable way to deal with thoughts, emotions and concepts about yourself and the world around you that may have become difficult in your life. Unlike other appraches ACT doesn’t try to replace ‘old’ thoughts with ‘new’ ones, but helps you to create a distance to your thoughts and emotions alltogether thus enabling you to more flexibility in your mind and in your behavior.
Another very important part of my work, in many regards also a component of ACT, is mindfulness and the focus on self-compassion. Mindfulnes in psychotherapy can create an accepting, non-judgemental view of a difficult situation, that may feel very unfamiliar, but also very alleviating for the clients. Mindfulnes is, in a way completed by the concept of self-compassion. While the first helps to recognize you’re finding yourself in a difficult situation or you’re faced with a difficult emotion, the latter helps to accept and to move through it.
If required, I also use elements taken from Schema Therapy quite frequently. Schema Therapy is especially helpful in recognizing and finding a good way of dealing with difficult behavioral and emotional patterns that often create tension in relationships, enabling step-by-step changes, no matter how deep or ingrained the patterns may be.
At the same time, I keep noticing that sometimes, a strong longing for something to change can also become an obstacle. This is why I can’t stress enough how important it is to get a full understanding of the current situation first. Acceptance of the current situation is a good and sustainable basis for change. Relevant problems are easier to overcome while future problems can be prevented. Sometimes the result may also be a very conscious decision for the status quo instead of change.
Thanks to a broad methodological set-up I am able to offer short-time interventions as well as long-term support. When it comes to relationship problems or family problems or questions concerning the general orientation in life or the own sexuality, friends and family may react overwhelmed. They may even be so involved themselves that they are unable to give good advice. In these situations, the fresh view of a person outside the system can be invaluable.
Individual Therapy
Individual therapy gives room to discuss your personal difficulties and concerns. Usually, the sessions will take place on a weekly basis for 50 minutes at a time. It is, however also possible to find an individual time frame suitable to your needs, making more or less frequent or even double sessions possible.
In certain cases, it may also be helpful to include close significant others in the process. This means you can bring close relatives or partner(s) to single therapy sesissions. Individual Therapy is the most common form of psychotherapy and is usually covered by health insurances.
Counselling
Life will inevidably confront every human being with sudden changes of circumstance from time to time that may require a big adjustment of the life situation, e.g. the loss of a job or the birth of a child. These adjustments can at times be too big for a person to handle on their own.
But process- and system oriented counselling can also be invaluable in areas like a career gridlock, difficulties in communication or just a general discontent with a personal life situation. The big diffenrce to individual therapy is that no psychological diagnosis is required and counselling is not covered by health insurances.
Couple’s Therapy
Problems can occur even in an overall happy relationship. These problems are usually hard to solve by the people directly involved alone, because sometimes the dynamics can be very manifested and couples get the feeling of just spinning in circles. Together we will analyse your communication, your expectations of one another and your personal needs and see how certain points can be improved, so both partners can rediscover a lighter hearted state of being together.
A focus of my work here lies on queer couples and alternative relationship concepts, e.g. couples with more than two people involved. Couple’s Therapy is also not covered by health insurances.
About me
To say it in the words of the great Dr. Maya Angelou “I am a human being and nothing human can be alien to me.” To me, it’s an invavuable gift to be allowed to accompany someone for a small part of their life journey, nevermind whether it is for a short time in counselling or a long therapy process. My objective is bringing my clients a bit closer to themselves and to support them in finding more tranquility in their lifes and to discover more space to live, equally on the inside and the outside.
Being faced with problems and the whole bandwidth of emotions is naturally a part of human life. My work is focused on personal needs and emotions, picking up my clients exactly where they are at the moment. Acceptance, appreciation, a non-judgmental attitude and transparecy are my most important values in therapy and counseling.
Qualifications
Diploma Psychologist (6-year full time degree)
Medical license (Approbation) as a Psychological Psychotherapist with the focus on Cognitive Behavioral Therary
Registration with the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Registration no. 32108
Focus Women- Lesbian- Trans*- Queer
A special focus of my work is the support and empowerment of women* and people from the queer community. I have been working with trans*people in a psychotherapeutical setting since 2014 after dealing with the topic of trans* and gender identity for quite a while before that. From my point of view, trans* is always a self-definition on a non-binary gender scale that can, but doens’t have to be ensued by a legal and/or physical transitional process. This process of finding one’s identity is often accompanied by challenges in many areas of life, where psychotherapeutic support can be very valuable.
I’ve been a member of the Berlin Health Network Transidentity („Berliner Gesundheits-Netzwerk Transidentität“ GNTI) since 2014, an interdisciplinary network of different proffessions, meeting once monthly to ensure a good care for trans*people and an optimal networking of professionals.
As part of my psychotherapeutical work I am offering therapy for trans*people as well as therapeutic support for relatives, especially their partners.
Since the beginning of 2017 I am also registered with the district court of Schöneberg to write the expert reports that are required for name and sex change applications.
Contact
Praxis Adress
Hans-Otto-Str. 3
10407 Berlin
Mobile: 0152 5611 6955
Public Transport
Tram M4 Hufelandstraße
Tram M10 Arnswalder Platz
Bus 200 Am Friedrichshain/ Hufelandstraße