What shaped my work
What draws me to this work is curiosity about how a person came to be who they are, rather than any idea of who they should become. I want to understand the story behind what someone is going through, not only the diagnosis. I am also drawn to people who move between cultures and languages, something that has shaped much of my own life.
This is also the perspective I bring to my practice in Frankfurt am Main, where I work with people in English or German, in person or online.
My interest in psychoanalysis came early. Later I gained practical experience in counseling, mainly in the person-centered approach of Carl Rogers. China became a long and continuing part of my life. In the years between my stays there, I trained in analytical Gestalt therapy, completing a five-year training program.
Where it began
My interest in psychology started long before I thought of becoming a therapist. As a child, I noticed how people treated someone who was different and could not easily defend themselves. I wanted to understand why some people are so hard to figure out, and why others need to put someone down to feel superior.
Psychoanalysis gave me a language for many of these questions. It looks at the inner life of a person and at how we are shaped by the family and the world we grow up in. I studied it at Goethe University Frankfurt, alongside English and Cultural Anthropology. What appealed to me was that it takes seriously the experience of people who are easily overlooked.
After university, my interest in other cultures became more concrete. Through further training in Intercultural Communication, I met Chinese students for the first time. Getting to know them made me curious about China, and that curiosity was part of why I later decided to live and work there.
Around the same time, I came to counseling from another direction. While working in a company, I trained in the person-centered approach of Carl Rogers. It was my first practical experience of meeting people as they are and trusting their own development instead of trying to direct it.
Between Germany and China
In 2006, I moved to China for the first time. Since then I have spent more than twelve years living and working there, in several long periods rather than one continuous stretch. I taught at universities and advised students, and also worked in intercultural education and counseling. Some of the Chinese students I first met in Germany later became my colleagues in China. So these years feel to me like one continuing thread.
After my first long period in China, I began my Gestalt therapy training in 2013 and completed the basic part in 2015. Then came another long period in China, and after returning to Germany I finished the advanced training in 2023. Throughout, I tried out what I was learning in my counseling work as I went, not only afterwards.
Back in Germany, I opened my own practice in Frankfurt in spring 2022. In autumn 2023, I returned to China, where I stayed until 2025. My practice continued on a smaller scale, mostly online, while I worked in English and German with expats as well as with students and academics. When I came back to Frankfurt, I took what I had learned there into my work. It has made me more attentive to what transitions can mean for people, and to what it is like to live between cultures and languages.
The person behind the diagnosis
A diagnosis can describe an important aspect of someone’s difficulties, but very little about the particular person experiencing them. To understand what someone is going through, we need to consider the life they have lived and how their relationships have developed. Only then can we begin to see what their suffering means to them. Two people may arrive at a similar diagnosis through very different paths.
For me, this is why the person and their particular life situation matter. Living between Germany and China has sharpened this further. It has shown me how much the contexts we grow up and live in shape us, often without our noticing. What feels self-evident in one setting can look quite different in another.
Today
Today, analytical Gestalt therapy provides the main framework for my work. It combines an interest in a person’s history and recurring patterns with close attention to what is happening here and now. I work with people at different points in their lives, in Frankfurt and online.
Outside of work, a few long-standing interests have accompanied me through different phases of life. I began practicing Qigong before my first long period in China, and during the isolation of the pandemic it helped me to stay grounded. I also write and take photographs, and literature and languages continue to interest me, as does paying attention to ordinary moments.
Selected qualifications & further training
Here is a selection of the education and training relevant to my work.
- Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie – training January 2019 – September 2020 · license granted January 2022
- Analytical Gestalt Therapy – Bonner Institut für Gestalttherapie, 2013–2023 · 1,384 hours
- M.A., Goethe University Frankfurt – 1988–1995 · English, Cultural Anthropology and Psychoanalysis
- Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip) in Intercultural Communication – University of Kassel, 2002–2004
- Integrated Therapeutic Counselling, Level 4 Diploma – NCFE, 2009–2011 · 200 guided learning hours (GLH)
- Foundation Certificate in Bereavement Counselling (6-Week Intensive) – Temenos UK · John Wilson, 2024
- Psychological Counseling / Life Counseling – Isolde Richter Heilpraktikerschule, 2020
- Person-Centered Counseling Skills – KBW, 2005–2006 · 80 hours
- Systemic Counseling & Coaching (IHK, SCGD) – BSG Bildungsinstitut für Soziales und Gesundheit, 2026 · 163 hours
- Qigong Instructor / Trainer – 2019–2022
Member of the Verband Freier Psychotherapeuten, Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie und Psychologischer Berater e.V. (VfP), a German professional association.
I work according to the ethical principles of the VfP: respect for each person’s dignity and self-determination, confidentiality and professional responsibility. In my practice for Gestalt therapy and psychological counseling in Frankfurt, I offer a protected space for personal development and mental health.
In my counseling work, especially with people whose lives span several countries, I orient myself on the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Professional Counsellors of the International Association for Counselling (IAC).