FAQs

We have had a practice in the heart of Zurich for almost 20 years.
During this time, we have changed our location twice, but always within a radius of about 500 meters or a few minutes’ walk.

Our practice is not only our workplace, but also an important part of our lives. We would not want to miss working on site under any circumstances.

For a long time, it was unimaginable for us to offer couples or individual sessions online. Then came the Corona pandemic – and we had no other choice.

In the meantime, we have found that in most sessions it makes little difference whether we work in person on site or meet our clients via video. Rather, it has been shown that the advantages in terms of flexibility – both in terms of time and location – clearly outweigh the supposed disadvantage of the lack of direct contact. And this applies not only to our clients, but also to ourselves.

Because the process of personal development – be it therapeutic, in coaching and even spiritual – always takes place within the client himself. The actual integration usually does not happen during the session, but in everyday life.

The Role of the Therapist

Since the beginnings of psychoanalysis, the task of therapists has primarily been to listen, accompany, and create a protected space in which clients can find their own impulses and direction.

In Freud’s time, there were no sophisticated means of communication like today’s video conferencing tools.
Anyone who wanted to work with him had to travel to Vienna to lie on his couch and talk. Freud listened, asked a question or two, and thus established the “talking cure” that we know today as psychoanalysis.

In the meantime, a lot has changed: The therapeutic landscape has become more diverse, as have the ways of communication. From the classic telephone to early picture phones to stable video conferences – digital conversations are now a matter of course in everyday life.

Admittedly, there may be technical hurdles at the beginning – the camera, microphone or speakers may not work right away. But once these little stumbling blocks have been overcome, we experience no noticeable difference to a session on site.

Online versus Practice Visit

Nevertheless, we agree with all those who say: Something is missing. A certain room. The way there. A smell. Maybe also the cup of tea or the glass of water that is always ready. And of course, the handshake is missing – that brief, familiar moment when entering the room.

And yet: We sometimes experience our presence – and the allowing of being touched and inner movement – even more intensely online. Perhaps because it is easier in this setting to block out the outside world for a moment.

The work of integration remains the same anyway – you will always do it alone.

With the switch to online, we have largely opted for a “nomadic” lifestyle and are often traveling the world for extended periods of time.

You can still meet us in person, but usually not in our practice rooms and rarely planned long in advance. We usually know about 4 weeks in advance where life is taking us – we often don’t know the exact circumstances ourselves.

For a personal meeting, all that remains for you is to embark on an adventure and see what fate has in store. Or wait until we are back in our practice in Zurich again.

Online sessions, on the other hand, we hold reliably – unless a hurricane sweeps over us, a tsunami rolls in, or the internet completely refuses to work.

At the beginning of our practice, we used the formal “Sie” with all clients.

This was not only an expression of politeness, but also a form of demarcation for us – the “Sie” created a professional distance.

Over time – and also prompted by suggestions from clients – we were able to increasingly embrace the informal “Du”. Today we are on first-name terms with almost all clients. It emphasizes eye level and strengthens the basis of trust in the cooperation.

On our website, however, we used the “Sie” for a long time – out of respect and in the sense of the usual forms of politeness in the German-speaking area.

With the switch to a location-independent practice and a growing internationality of our work, however, we have decided on a uniform approach: The Anglo-Saxon “You” knows no difference between Du and Sie – and we are now adopting this openness on our site as well.

In the sessions themselves, we are happy to adapt to you – or to you (formal).

From our experience of accompanying over 7,000 couples in the last 16 years, we have consciously decided to only work in a Two-on-Two setting.

Because too often we have seen how in classic couples sessions with only one therapist, one person gets “caught between two stools”. In such moments, the individual therapist is often more concerned with balancing the attention than with fully addressing the actual concerns of the couple.

Also, in our Two-on-Two sessions, the masculine and the feminine complement each other, as well as different points of view; resonances and approaches to the world. This not only expands the space, but also deepens the understanding of each other.

Sometimes we receive inquiries from clients who would prefer to opt for one therapist due to the slightly higher costs. We can understand this well – that’s why we don’t charge double the rate. Our sessions in the practice are only about 25% above the usual rate in Switzerland for couples sessions with one person.

A few days after a session, you will receive an invoice from us by email.

The invoice contains an IBAN so that you can transfer the amount to us, as well as a link to our Wise account. There you can also pay with your credit card without your own Wise account.

We ask that our invoices be paid within 14 days of the email being sent, but no later than before the next scheduled session.

¹ Film quote: Cloud Atlas – Sonmi451

² Theodor W. Adorno: Minima Moralia

³ Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving

⁴ Khalil Gibran: Beauty

⁵ Rumi: Ghazals

⁶ Plato: Republic

⁷ Plato: Apology of Socrates

⁸ J.W. Goethe: Faust