Systemic therapy in Berlin

I offer psychotherapy for

• individuals
• couples
• Friends
• and other people who are in relationships with each other and want to work together on a topic

I offer a space where you are welcome to bring whatever is weighing on you and preoccupying your mind. Together, we will look at what gives you strength, what has shaped you, and what steps feel right for you.

About me

Education

Systemic therapy (SG)

Alternative practitioner limited to the field of psychotherapy

Master of Arts (Ethnology and Romance Languages)

training courses

Various trauma therapy training courses (trauma-sensitive couples therapy; imaginative trauma therapy; body-oriented trauma therapy; trauma therapy with refugees; etc.)

Couples therapy training courses focusing on emotion-focused work with Dr. Ghazaleh Bailey

UNICEF Training of Trainers National initiative to protect persons living in refugee centers

Train the Trainer* in anti-discrimination work at ManuEla Ritz

work experience

I have been working as a consultant in anti-violence work since 2018. Since 2020, I have been working as a systemic therapist at XENION e.V., a psychosocial center for politically persecuted people and victims of torture in Berlin. I work with individuals and couples there. Most of my clients have experienced violence as women or because of their trans* identity or sexual orientation.

My stance

I am queer. I am white and deal a lot with racism and my entanglement with it as a white person. Due to the Jewish and politically persecuted part of my family history, the fight against anti-Semitism and solidarity with refugees is particularly important to me.

I am also the mother of a child, which has brought me new questions and insights in many ways, including for my work.

I therefore understand how important therapeutic spaces are in which queer and other marginalized realities of life are addressed sensitively and with real experiential knowledge—rather than with prejudice. I also understand how important therapeutic spaces are in which mental stress and trauma are not simply seen as individual problems but are placed in a social context.

Discrimination sensitivity is a central component of my work—as is a trauma-sensitive approach. I primarily support people who are living with stressful or traumatic experiences and their effects. In doing so, I draw on a variety of different therapeutic approaches that I have acquired through training, further education, supervision and intervision, as well as other forms of collegial exchange and reading, and which I continue to develop on an ongoing basis.

What is important to me is:

• Taking experiences of exclusion, shame, or invisibility seriously
• Not pathologizing people
• but rather to understand people, how they became who they are and what they need to feel more harmonious in their lives (again).

I am moved by how much strength is generated when people feel truly seen:
without judgment, without labels.

My practice should be as safe a place as possible—respectful, transparent, and welcoming.

• My therapeutic support is aimed at people who
  • who want more clarity, closeness, or understanding in relationships of any kind
    (couples, romantic relationships, friendships, parenting, shared living arrangements...)
  • who are looking for a space where they can be themselves with everything they are
  • that deal with identity, gender, or belonging
  • who want to understand recurring conflicts or patterns in their lives
  • who want support that is sensitive to trauma and discrimination and critical of power structures

  You can come alone, as a couple, or together with one or more other important people in your life.
  Together, we will explore ways in which you can feel (once again) more connected, secure, and comfortable.

  Possible topics for cooperation include:

  better understand deadlocked situations

  Deciphering crises and conflicts and developing "ways out"

  Clarifying and changing communication patterns

  Becoming more aware of one's own boundaries and maintaining them

  Recognizing and classifying old injuries

  regain access to strength, lightness, and self-efficacy.

I am unfortunately unable to bill through statutory health insurance providers. Private health insurance providers often cover the costs of self-paying patients, but in the case of psychotherapy, this should definitely be clarified in advance.

My offer is therefore aimed at self-payers.

I offer therapy in German and English.

Systemic therapy assumes that people always live in relationships—with others, with themselves, and with their environment. Difficulties rarely arise in isolation. They develop within certain dynamics, patterns, or (social) contexts. At the same time, these contexts also offer possible solutions.

By looking at these connections, which often feel like a tangled ball of wool, together and understanding them better, new possibilities for action can open up. Change is not triggered by pressure, but can grow through reflection, insight, feeling, perception, and new perspectives.

In addition to what is stressful or perceived as problematic, I focus above all on what is empowering: existing skills, helpful experiences, as well as inner and outer strengths and empowering people, things, and activities that you bring with you.

In systemic therapy, clients are considered experts on their own life realities. The therapeutic process is designed jointly and on an equal footing. You contribute knowledge about your own life, experiences, and needs, and I contribute my professional and therapeutic expertise.

In addition, my approach is characterized by a trauma-sensitive therapeutic attitude.  For me, trauma-sensitive therapy means being aware that many psychological stresses and problems—as well as a range of physical complaints—can be related to stressful or traumatic life experiences. These do not always have to be clearly identified or remembered as "trauma" in order to have a lasting impact on experience, feelings, and behavior.

My aim is not to force or "work through" experiences, but rather to support security, stability, and orientation. The focus is on individual pace, personal boundaries, and self-determination. I understand symptoms as signs that usually indicate meaningful protective and adaptive responses to overwhelming experiences—not as signs of weakness or malfunction.

For me, being sensitive to discrimination means being aware in my therapeutic work of how much experiences of discrimination shape and differentiate our realities of life. I have been dealing with many different experiences of discrimination for many years. Those that I experience myself—discrimination as a woman and as a queer person—but also those that my clients and people in my environment have to and had to experience, especially racism and transphobia.

Using systemic, trauma-therapeutic, and body-oriented methods, along with a critical view of discrimination and power, we can set out on this journey together.