The Conversation

Uncompromising Loyalty

Principles of Counsel that do not bend

As a confidant, I am aware that I am not free from inner models or structural influences. Yet there are principles that guide my work – principles that are not negotiable:

1. I am partisan

I stand with you as an advocate stands with a client – not blindly, but with deliberate loyalty. That loyalty is not about freezing you in place; it is about standing by your side as you choose what to keep and what to transform. In our conversations there is no method to endure, no plan to complete – only the work we choose to do together. I enter your perspective fully, to understand it from within, and to think with you toward whatever future you want to claim. Some avoid taking sides because they believe it compromises objectivity. I call it the only honest way to work.

2. I am judgmental

I judge because I recognise dignity when I see it. My guests arrive with history, courage, doubt – and dignity. I want to speak with such people, not to treat them, not to coach them, but to listen, to explore, to think together. Discretion is not a courtesy here; it is the architecture of the space. It frees thought and shields what matters.

3. I am biased

I begin with the certainty that there is something singular in every person I meet – whether or not they can feel it, whether or not they would admit it. This is not optimism, not a courtesy extended in advance, but the ground I stand on. Years of engaging deeply with people’s experiences have taught me that every story contains something worth honouring. Even the choice to enter into our conversation is already an act of courage and dignity. My bias means I see you before I see the problem, the façade, or the label – and I hold that truth from the first moment we speak.

4. I am forgetful.

I forget by design and because I choose to, because forgetting protects you. No names, no connections, no traces survive beyond what we need to continue thinking together. What remains is a private thread, ours alone, enough for us to pick up exactly where we left off – and meaningless anywhere else. Even the fragments I keep are secured with encryption designed to withstand the age of quantum computing.

5. I am stubborn

I follow my own compass, not the drift of fashion. That means thinking for myself, exploring, and refusing to be carried by the noise of the day. Psychology, like all science, is not free from influence. Without stubbornness, it loses depth and variety. I stay with what serves you, even when it runs against the current.

6. I am slow.

I am slow because the right answer matters more than the first, and because slowness can protect both memory and identity. In a world that mistakes speed for progress, I pause – to listen, to let thoughts settle, to allow connections to form. I will not trade depth for haste. Slowness is not hesitation; it is the discipline of understanding before deciding. Neuroscience shows that rushing can distort memory irrevocably – and with it, the continuity of who we believe ourselves to be. When interpretations arrive too soon and questions smuggle in suggestions like Trojan horses, they can alter not only what we recall, but how we understand our own story. Measured, unhurried interpretation protects both memory and identity, giving them the space to remain intact and the room to stay whole.

Slowness also means refusing to make hasty classifications or interpretations. I have spoken with people of all kinds – including the very unconventional and the highly individual – and the quick reflex would be to put them in boxes. Slowness allows me to understand. That is real tolerance – not the kind of indifference sometimes mistaken for it today. Time is a deeply relative thing when the answer must be right.

7. I am not for hire

I am not for hire. Our conversation begins when we both decide it should exist. That choice is part of its integrity – and the reason it can be unlike any other.

What Matters to Me

From the principles above grows my way of working. They shape how I listen, how I ask, and how I decide.

Everyday Language

I place great value on everyday language – even for complex matters. No jargon that hides gaps in understanding. Only those who can describe something in everyday words have truly grasped it. Choose what you would rather hear:

• “Affective dysregulation with episodic impulse‑control disorder” – or “He sometimes does not know where to put his anger.”
• “External overstimulation with dissociative reaction” – or “It is simply too much for him right now.”
• “Intrapsychic conflict with regressive tendency” – or “She just wants to be left alone.”
• “pH‑reduced cucurbit of the genus Cucumis sativus” – or “Pickled cucumber.”

The first version sounds more important of course – and somehow more expensive. – My commitment to clarity began with a key experience. I once asked a physicist whether there was a text that could make Einstein’s theory of relativity understandable for laypeople.

I expected a modern, didactic introduction – perhaps even with illustrations. What I received was something else. To my surprise, he did not recommend a contemporary textbook, but a slim volume by Einstein himself: “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory – A Popular Exposition”. Written in German in 1916 (English version in 1920), not for colleagues, but for interested readers. He demonstrated with striking simplicity: whoever has truly understood something can explain it.

If you wish, you may begin reading it now – and experience everyday language at its finest. I will wait here.

Open‑Source Psychology

In open‑source psychology, it becomes transparent why a method or perspective might be helpful – on which assumptions it rests, and what it truly means. What makes a method valuable is not the concealment of its origin, but the clarity of its effect.

My guests make their decisions on an informed basis. This is essential, because the subject is nothing less than their own psyche.

Not: “Try this, it has often helped.” But: “This could help – and I will show you why.”

Seeing Function, Not Fault

Every concern has its history – and often a function that remains hidden at first glance.

I always look for what such a state achieves. This does not mean we glorify it – it means we understand it. Anyone who tries to dissolve what still carries a vital function within the system will either meet resistance or risk making the situation worse.

This perspective changes much. It honours what is often overlooked: the adaptability of the psyche under pressure.

A state may be challenging – yet it loses its label as “malfunction.” It reveals itself instead as an emergency mode, a protective response, an attempt to remain capable under difficult conditions. Not perfect, but functional. And worthy of recognition, not dismissal.

Like a temporary structure that carries us safely until something stronger is ready, even a burdensome state often fulfils an important task. Whoever understands this protective role builds new supports before dismantling the old – and creates change that endures.

Limiting Beliefs

I work with inner convictions – especially those that guide us without ever having been consciously chosen. They decide more than we realise: self‑image, scope of action, sense of life. Often they are like guardrails – only we stand on the wrong side of them. They hold us back, restrict us, mislead us.

Some people experience good times as harbingers of misfortune. Others see age not as a number, but as a threshold to illness and decline. Such convictions act – and they act against us.

What was my neighbour telling me when he remarked: “It has been suspiciously good for me for quite a while now.”

I work with an approach that recognises such patterns, weakens them, and sometimes dissolves them entirely. It is open, transparent, and explainable – open‑source psychology in practice. I will gladly show it to you when we meet.

We Have Only Spoken …

Above all, my work is about conversing with you – my guests. That is more important than any method. Methods may step into the background once we begin to talk. And it is precisely there that they unfold their effect.

In the best case, the connection between my principles and my stance leads you to ask yourself afterwards: “Why do I feel better each time? We have only spoken.”

That would be the highest recognition my approach could receive.

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Languages A Short Profile The Architecture of Exceptional Discretion Publications Contact

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The Psychological Conversation

No therapy. No coaching – the conversation as its own format

Psychology is a wide field, and most of it unfolds beyond the borders of healthcare. Psychologists work in research, in industry, in education, in business, in politics and diplomacy, in ergonomics, and in many other domains.

It is concerned with what moves people – inwardly and outwardly: thinking, feeling, acting, learning, perceiving, deciding, and living together. Not only when something “no longer works,” but whenever people want to understand or shape themselves, others, and their world more deeply.

Psychotherapy is a specialised branch of this broad spectrum – and by no means the largest. Its purpose is clear: healing. It is important. Like the ship’s doctor on an ocean liner: indispensable when things become serious. But the psychological conversation is something qualitatively different. It is not the emergency ward. To stay with the image: it is the bridge, the salon, the wheelhouse.

As a confidant for people with the highest need for discretion, I do not work in the shadow of a diagnosis. I work in the light of freedom.

No insurance‑driven limitation to “the ill.” No dogmatic adherence to schools of therapy. No obligation to standardised evidence protocols. No duty to document within a healthcare system. No reduction of life questions to pathology. No verification of personal details. – Neither therapy nor coaching.

Instead: a conversation as its own format. Freedom of method. Freedom of thought. Equality of stance. A place where everything may be spoken – except illness. A space where my conversation partners are not patients, but guests: people with questions, decisions, and the wish to think together.

The psychological conversation is discreet, anonymisable, escrow‑capable. It is not part of a system – it is an alternative to it.

Those who come here do not seek a diagnosis. They seek clarity. Resonance. Orientation. And they find a conversation that does not confine – but opens a space for freedom.

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Languages A Short Profile The Architecture of Exceptional Discretion Publications Contact

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