FAQs

We have had a practice in the heart of Zurich for almost 20 years. In the meantime, we have changed our geographical location twice, but all of this has been within a 10-minute walk or 500 meters.

The practice is our workplace and part of our lives and we wouldn’t want to miss working on site.
For a long time, it was unimaginable for us to offer online couple or individual sessions. Then Corona came along and we had no other choice.

In the meantime, we have realized that for most sessions it makes no difference to work face-to-face or to have a “video encounter” with our clients. Rather, it has become clear that the advantages of spatial and temporal flexibility outweigh the supposed disadvantage of “face-to-face” – for our clients and for ourselves.

The process of personal development, whether therapeutic, coaching or even spiritual, always takes place within the client. And in most cases, this integration does not take place in the session, but in everyday life.

The role of therapists

Since the invention of psychoanalysis, therapists have mostly been listeners, companions and provide a framework in which the client can find his impulses and direction.

But in Sigmund Freud’s time, there was no such sophisticated means of communication as today’s video conferencing tools. People who wanted to work with him had to travel to Vienna, lie down on his couch and talk. He listened, asked the odd question and thus established the talking cure that is now called psychoanalysis.

Times have changed since Freud, therapy has evolved and there are now countless methods. Communication options have also evolved, from the telephone to the video phone to the video conference that is common in everyday business life.

Sometimes the IT is a bit bumpy at the beginning and the camera, microphone or audio output gets stuck. But once these difficulties have been overcome, we experience no difference to a live session.

Online versus a visit to the practice

Nevertheless, we agree with everyone who says that something is missing: a specific room, a way to get there, a smell, perhaps also the cup of tea or glass of water that is usually offered; and of course the handshake shortly after entering the room is missing.

Our presence and, if you allow yourself to be emotionally touched and moved, we have sometimes even experienced it more intensely online – it is probably easier to block out the outside world in this setting.

The work of integration remains the same anyway – you will always do it on your own.

With the switch to online, we have largely opted for “nomadic” living conditions and are often out and about in the world.

You can still meet us in person, but usually not in our practice rooms and not well in advance. We usually know about 4 weeks in advance where we will be, but we often don’t know the exact circumstances ourselves.

For a personal meeting, all you have to do is embark on an adventure and see what fate has in its backpack; or wait and see when we are back in our Zurich practice.

Unless a hurricane is sweeping over us, a tsunami is approaching or a war is breaking out around us, we will always take advantage of booked online sessions and ensure a stable Internet.

At the beginning of our practice, we were on a first-name basis with all our clients.

It wasn’t just politeness, we also needed the “you” to set ourselves apart – it created a professional distance.

This was important in the beginning, because as professional as we appeared, we were unsure of our supposed professionalism. Over the years, we were able to get involved with the “you”, partly thanks to suggestions from clients, and today we are on a first-name basis with almost all clients. It underlines the level playing field and the basis of trust in our collaboration.

However, we have chosen to use the “Sie” form of address on the website: we felt it was more respectful and followed the rules of politeness in the German-speaking world.

The conversion of our practice from stationary to online was also accompanied by internationalization and the Anglo-Saxon language does not know “you”, only “you”.

We have adopted it for our entire website.

In meetings, however, we are happy to adapt to you.

Based on our experience of accompanying over 7,000 couples over the last 16 years, we have decided to offer only two to two sessions.
Experience has taught us that a single person often slips between the chairs.

In such moments, a single therapist is often more concerned with balancing attention than with the couple’s actual concerns.

In our two-to-two sessions, the masculine and feminine complement each other, as do different perspectives and perceptions of the world.

From time to time we receive inquiries from clients who refer to the slightly higher price of two-to-two sessions and would like to use just one therapist. We can understand this, which is why we do not charge the rate of two therapists, but are only about 25% above the usual rate for a couple’s session with a single person in Switzerland.

A few days after a session you will receive an invoice from us by e-mail.

The invoice contains an IBAN so that you can transfer the amount to us and a link to our PayPal account. There you can pay with your credit card as a guest without being a PayPal customer.

We ask that our invoices are paid within one week of the mailing, but at the latest before the next agreed session.

Trust

Trust is a gift – you can’t buy it and you can’t “earn” it, even if it is often said that trust has to be earned.

What can or must be earned is not trust, but part of a deal – an agreement in which an exchange of material or emotional goods takes place. This has nothing to do with trust, because it requires an agreement to begin with.

We don’t want to make deals, not with each other, not with you and not with the rest of the world. Deals are restrictive because they are based on rules, some of which are always taken for granted and others are taboo. In the world of bartering, legal scholars try to cover every detail of a deal as well as possible and yet often something slips through their fingers, or they are so crafty that the actual deal becomes a “rip-off”.

Of course, a session between you and us is also a barter: you expect us to listen and give impulses within a set time frame. You expect this session to take place on the agreed date and that we will be fully present at the agreed time.

We expect you to pay us the agreed amount of money for the time provided.

You entrust yourself and your view of your current relationship or another topic to us; we trust that you will pay the agreed amount after you have received our invoice by e-mail.

This is the difference to a deal, you give us your trust and we give you ours.

No small print, no contracts, instead we put our trust in each other.

¹ Movie quote: Cloud Atlas – Sonmi451

² Theodor W. Adorno: Minima Moralia

³ Erich Fromm: The art of loving

⁴ Khalil Gibran: Beauty

⁵ Rumi: Ghaselen

⁶ Plato: Politeia

⁷ Plato: Apology of Socrates

⁸ J.W. Goethe: Faust