SYSTEMIC COUPLES AND FAMILIY THERAPIE
06 ·WHAT GUIDES ME
„Trauma is an invisible force that shapes our lives.
It shapes, the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world."
– Gabor Maté
01
WHEN THE PAST COLORS THE PRESENT
We are born into relationships: into a family and/or among people we depend on. Very early on, our system begins to learn: How does closeness work here? What am I allowed to show? What might threaten connection?
Children don’t answer these questions with words, but through adaptation. They become attuned to shifts in mood, take on responsibility, withdraw, adapt, or learn to need very little. Under difficult conditions, these adaptations can become protective and survival strategies: intelligent attempts to cope with circumstances a child cannot change. In the process, awareness of their own needs, feelings, and boundaries can recede into the background. Our system organizes around these adaptations and develops patterns designed to protect us from becoming overwhelmed in the future.
Trauma is not only the one major event. A persistent atmosphere of fear, unpredictability, or being alone with our experience can also leave its mark. When experiences exceed our capacity to process them, they can remain active within us in fragments.
What we learn about closeness and safety in our early relationships stays with us as we move through life. We meet others with an inner story about “how relationships work,” what we can expect, and what might become dangerous.
The past becomes an unconscious filter through which we experience the present.
02
COUPLES · ONE RELATIONSHIP, TWO STORIES
In a couple, two people meet with different histories and experiences.
What feels like familiar closeness to one person can feel like too much to the other. What one person needs in order to feel safe can trigger protective responses in the other. Withdrawal meets pursuit, one need for resolution meets another. Then it is not only two adults in the present responding to each other, but also two inner stories about what relationship means.
This can feel especially familiar in our families of origin: a comment from our mother, a look from our brother, our father’s silence, and suddenly, at 48, we’re behaving as though we were eight again.
In our relationships as couples, we are often less aware of these dynamics.
In relationships, our deep longing for ourselves often comes into view.
03
QUIET LOYALTY AND THE ROLE OF SHAME
Our ideas about belonging take shape within our families. We are often loyal to stories, roles, and expectations without realizing it. Perhaps our own childhood wasn’t “allowed” to have been difficult because our parents did the best they could. Perhaps setting boundaries feels like ingratitude. Perhaps we continue to carry responsibility even when we’re exhausted.
These inner rules don’t necessarily need to be spoken aloud. They often become visible only when we begin to deviate from them.
And then shame emerges. It turns early experiences into judgments about ourselves:
"That hurts me” becomes “I’m too sensitive.”
“I don’t want this” becomes “I’m selfish.”
“Something was missing for me” becomes “I’m ungrateful.”
In this way, shame can preserve belonging: as long as I look for the problem within myself, the relationship remains untouched. For a child, this can be essential for survival. But sometimes these solutions outlast the problem they once solved and lead us to mistake them for who we are.
Shame turns experiences into judgments about ourselves and preserves belonging.
04
RELATIONSHIP AS A SPACE FOR NEW EXPERIENCE
Our history and the ways we found to live with it deserve acknowledgment. They have carried us this far.
As children, we had little influence over the conditions we lived in. Today, we have different possibilities. We can become aware of what continues to shape us, understand what purpose it once served, and decide how much space we want to give it today.
We cannot change our past. But we can change how we experience ourselves in relation to it today. And with that, how it shapes our lives, our choices, and our relationships.
I have a history. And today, I have a choice in how I experience myself within it.
HOW I WORK ↗
THE FRAMEWORK OF MY WORK
The systemic, trauma informed couples and family therapy offered here is not medical psychotherapy as defined by the German Psychotherapists Act and is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric treatment.
My work supports personal clarity, relationship development, and orientation in complex life situations for individuals, couples, and adult families. Outside the scope of medical diagnosis.
REQUEST A STARTING POINT CONVERSATION↗
05 · BEGINNING
Your first step:
Let’s create a
sense of direction together.
“Pausing in the Fog”: In the Starting Point Conversation, we take time to look more closely at what brings you here, sort through the most important questions, and begin to map out what matters to you. This can help create a clearer sense of which next steps might make sense for you. At the same time, we get to know each other and develop a sense of whether we can imagine continuing to work together.
I work bilingually in German and English, online and in my space in Stade. Weekends, too.
ZUKUNFTSMOMENT is less than an hour’s drive from Hamburg’s Elbe suburbs (Blankenese, Othmarschen, Nienstedten, Rissen) and western Hamburg (Altona, Bahrenfeld, Eidelstedt).
From southern Hamburg, the Harburg district, Lüneburg, and Bremen, the drive takes about 75 to 90 minutes.
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