Individual Therapy
Psychotherapy is a fascinating process of self-discovery, analysis and understanding. It is a deep and complicated process that doesn’t work overnight. Most mental disorders and individual problems and difficulties have developed over a long period of time. Sometimes they stem from early childhood. This is why in some cases treatment can take months or even years. Despite its long treatment time, therapy can enable lasting changes that can lead to a healthier and happier life.
Special focus: migration
I have many years of experience working with people whose lives have been shaped by migration. Migration is an exciting and sometimes difficult phase of life. It touches identity, relationships, and one’s sense of belonging. In these moments, therapeutic support can be especially important and needed. I work in German, English, and Russian. This allows many patients to talk about what they’ve been through in the language that feels most natural to them. My patients include English-speaking expats from around the globe, as well as people from the wider post-Soviet region. This removes the distance an interpreter can create so that there’s no need to explain what feels self-evident within one’s own background.
What I treat
- Depression and other affective disorders
- Adjustment disorders, and support through major life changes, crises and situations of overload
- Personality disorders
- Exhaustion syndrome, burnout
- Anxiety, phobias, panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress disorders
Therapeutic methods
Deep Psychology
The central assumption in this approved and empirically proven type of psychotherapy is that not only do we shape our lives through our will, but that everything we feel, think, and decide also depends on unconscious motivations. These factors, which we cannot perceive and influence, include, amongst others, internal conflicts that particularly affect our adult life, even if they occurred in early childhood. These conflicts affect our feelings and thoughts, as well as our relationships with other people. In adulthood when we experience, for example, a painful separation, these unconscious conflicts can once again severely burden us and even make us ill. My role is to help you to discover these unconscious influences of your mental health. At the same time, I support you in better solving your conflicts, enabling you to enjoy a healthier and less stressful life. Sessions take place once a week in a sitting down position.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is considered the archetype of psychotherapeutic treatment. Since its emergence at the end of the 19th century, it has been in constant evolution all the way into modern days. Sigmund Freud’s realisation that much of mental life operates outside of our awareness was groundbreaking. Psychoanalysis is a deep, individualized form of talk therapy, which encompasses an open conversation aiming to uncover ideas and memories long buried in the unconscious mind. It is an intense process of self-examination and feedback from the analyst. It involves confronting your painful and undesirable feelings, memories, thoughts, and impulses. Dream work and dream interpretation are also part of this process. Psychoanalysis can bring about structural changes and modifications of personality, as well as promote healing, understanding of oneself and one’s relationship dynamics with others and encourage creative expression. It can be a powerful treatment for those wishing and willing to delve into deep self-reflection. Sessions take place multiple times a week usually in a lying down position.
Free Association
The ground rule of psychoanalysis is free association. It is also one of the hardest. It means to speak freely without censoring yourself, to enable extensive exploration of unconscious beliefs, emotions, and desires. Freud said that to associate freely is to:
“… say whatever goes through your mind. Act as though, for instance, you were a traveller sitting next to the window of a railway carriage and describing to someone inside the carriage the changing views you see outside.”
Sigmund Freud, On Beginning the Treatment (1913)
Is psychoanalysis right for me?
Psychoanalysis differs from other psychotherapies in its long treatment time and lack of predefined goals. In contrast to other types of therapy it is open-ended and usually lasts many years. Those looking for concrete advice, quick results or quick relief can get frustrated and may find it difficult to engage into this long-term process. This form of therapy also requires a certain willingness to deal with and reflect on one’s life story and be prepared to confront the difficult and painful aspects of one’s psyche.