How can I support you?
Are you seeking personal or social growth? Are you going through a period of change? Are you looking for change in your personal or professional life? Do you need short-term support with a difficult decision? Would you like to resolve an inner conflict? Do you need support during a mental health crisis? Are you struggling with your thoughts, worries, or stress?
Do you need coaching, counseling, or psychotherapy? I would be happy to support you.
Your space for change and inner balance
Systemic Coaching
They exist for all of us: thinking traps, challenges, dilemmas that hinder us to flourish. I would be happy to support you in sorting and organizing your thoughts, your options and your goals.
I offer individual coaching sessions in German and English, both online and in person here in Berlin: at Sinn & Seele Coaching (Genossenschaftsstraße 70, 12489 Berlin).
I provide systemic coaching using also methods and insights from positive psychology
A systemic approach to coaching implies that we look at both you and your topic holistically, considering the relevant contexts and relationships in which you are living. This opens up a new scope for solutions for you. Systemic coaching has a sustainable impact, because relevant contexts and people are included who will be part of the change.
From a systemic point of view, you yourself can also be a system with many (inner) parts, whose individual illumination can lead to finding solutions.
For me, coaching means that you are in the driver's seat and we explore the possible paths together.
Consulting vs. Coaching
Coaching is a great tool to get results that are feasible and sustainable. Coaching elicits many possible solutions from you and you decide where the process is headed to. If you do need consulting and external expertise though, we will adjust the format and determine what is best for you and your specific needs.
I would be delighted to support you in reaching your own personal “aha” moments.
Psychotherapy (in accordance with the German Alternative Medicine Act)
As a licensed alternative practitioner specializing in psychotherapy, I am able to offer you my support if your concerns go beyond the scope of coaching, if you feel the pressures you face exceed your ability to cope.
Sometimes in life we reach points where stress becomes overwhelming, thoughts get stuck, or our own ressources are not suffiicient. Psychotherapy offers a safe space to pause, better understand yourself, and develop new ways of dealing with challenges. The focus is on your personal experiences, feelings, and needs. Together, we’ll explore what’s weighing on you, which patterns may be repeating, and what resources you already possess. The goal of therapy isn’t to function “perfectly,” but to find a helpful and authentic way of relating to yourself and your own life.
Psychotherapy can help with:
• Fears
• Stress, feeling overwhelmed, and exhaustion
• Low mood and depressive episodes
• Self-doubt and inner turmoil
• Relationship conflicts
• Life crises and changes
A trusting therapeutic relationship forms the foundation for change. Within a supportive and safe environment, new perspectives can emerge, old burdens can be understood, and new ways of coping can be developed.
The first step doesn't have to be a big one—sometimes all it takes is allowing yourself to ask for help.
More information about my psychotherapy methods
I am enthusiastic about and convinced of the benefits of ACT. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is part of the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapy and is a modern, scientifically grounded, and well-researched approach to psychotherapy.
ACT is based on mindfulness and acceptance and incorporates both behavioral and cognitive approaches; it focuses on how we deal with our own emotions and recognizes the importance of physical sensations and reactions in this process.
ACT helps us reflect on what truly matters to us (values) and how we can achieve what matters to us (commitment)—despite internal obstacles—such as thoughts and feelings that stand in our way and sometimes cause us to get stuck. ACT helps us develop a different attitude toward our thoughts and feelings (acceptance) and engage in less avoidance behavior.
When we recognize our thoughts (mindfulness and the observer’s perspective) but do not judge them (acceptance), a kind of neutral detachment (defusion) arises, which paves the way for change.
The six core processes (acceptance, commitment, defusion, mindfulness, observer perspective, and values clarification) support you in achieving greater well-being. This occurs through the fulfillment of meaning that arises when we live in accordance with our values.
All six core principles support and depend on one another to create psychological flexibility, which in turn is crucial for our well-being in a world, where the only certainty is change.
Psychological flexibility enables a shift in perspective, adaptability, emotional regulation, and well-being. It means accepting whatever comes our way, dealing with it without losing sight of what is important to us, and thus responding to change with resilience. Psychological flexibility allows us to balance conflicting needs and areas of life.
Through Psychological flexibility and the ACT process, you gain greater clarity about your own values and value-driven behavior despite inner obstacles, leading to greater well-being. When we live in alignment with our values, we experience our lives as meaningful and fulfilling; for example, important decisions come more easily to us and are more fulfilling when we make them in connection with well-understood personal values. Where we experience meaning, we experience motivation for change.
I have been working with ACT in both academic and practical settings in the non-clinical sector since 2017. As a licensed alternative practitioner in psychotherapy, I am pleased to be able to support you even when your stress levels exceed your coping capacity and mental health issues arise, because mental health and mental health disorders form a continuum with fluid boundaries, and we will carefully assess which approach is right for you.
Process and Pricing
Self-Paid
My services are self-paid.
As a licensed alternative practitioner specializing in psychotherapy, I am not able to bill statutory health insurance providers for my services.
If you have private health insurance, please check with your insurance provider to see if they will cover the costs.
The advantages of self-pay services are:
• Quick appointment scheduling
• Methodological freedom
• Flexible session duration and frequency
• More room for individual topics
• No notification of public health insurance needed
Initial consultation (30 minutes)
During an initial consultation, we’ll work together to determine whether and how I can support you.
The initial consultation costs €30 / €25* (online)
*If the session extends beyond 30 minutes, the corresponding fees for a 50- or 90-minute session will apply.
50-minute session
Individual: €85 / €80 (online)
Students and those in vocational training receive a 10% discount
Additional discounts available for everyone booking 5 or more sessions.
90-minute therapy session
Individual: €120 / €110 (online)
Students and those in vocational training receive a 10% discount
Additional discounts available for everyone booking 5 or more sessions.
More information about my coaching methods and target audiences
Taking a systemic approach to coaching means that we view both you and your concerns holistically, taking into account the relevant contexts and relationships in which you live. This opens up new, even unexpected avenues for solutions. Systemic coaching has a lasting impact because it mentally incorporates key connections and people who are part of the change. From a systemic perspective, you yourself can also be a system with many (inner) components, and examining each of these individually can lead to finding solutions.
Coaching Focus Areas
• Change processes
• Personal development topics
• Positive psychology interventions
• Values, meaning, and strengths
• Resilience, hope, and confidence
• Self-awareness and self-regulation
Target Audiences
I am passionate about recognizing potential, inspiring people, and fostering values, as well as advocating for change. I therefore enjoy working with anyone who comes to me with a desire for change—whether big or small—or who is facing change.
Based on my diverse professional and international experiences, I offer my support in particular to the following target groups:
• researchers
• Clients in the fields of development cooperation and humanitarian aid
• Teachers and educators
• Expatriates who want to (re)orient themselves in Germany
• Young people who are searching for their own paths and meaning in a strengths- and resource-oriented way
• Refugees (pro bono)
Don’t belong to the target group? You are, of course, still very welcome.
Coaching Rates
60 minutes: €100 / €95 (online)
90 minutes: €120 / €110 (online)
Students and those in vocational training receive a 10% discount
Additional discounts are available to everyone for sessions of 5 or more.
About Positive Psychology
My services are strongly impacted by positive psychology, the scientific understanding of what constitutes a fulfilling life. Positive psychology explores the concepts, traits, and strengths that enable individuals and communities to grow and flourish. Positive psychology focuses on the potential, resources, strengths, and values that every person possesses. Positive Psychology assumes that people are fundamentally resourceful and motivated to develop themselves further. It is important to me to emphasize that this encompasses the entire spectrum of pleasant and unpleasant emotions—it is not about excluding “negative” emotions, nor is it about “Happiology,” “positive thinking,” or a “dictate of happiness.” Fundamentally, the resource-oriented approaches of positive psychology have much to offer and can enrich coaching, counseling, and psychotherapy alike.
Positive psychology explores what makes life worth living. It offers wonderful methods for reaching solutions in coaching e.g. through a values- or strengths-based approach. Through positive psychology interventions, your resources and strengths can be harnessed to view challenges from a position of strength, build upon the positive aspects that already exist, and develop solutions. Working with what matters to you—that is, working with values—leads to a sense of fulfillment and more sustainable well-being.
Our values reflect what is truly important to us. They are thus guiding principles that shape our judgments, attitudes, and behaviors, with values being defined by the fact that they remain consistent across different situations. When we act in accordance with our values, we experience a sense of fulfillment.
Values are cognitive, yet they have a strong emotional impact. When values are at stake, we therefore often react with strong emotions. Conflicting values can lead to personal or professional conflicts.
Mediation
Mediation is a means of dispute resolution in private and professional conflicts, offering extrajudicial, autonomous resolution of conflicts. Conflicts absorb a lot of energy and can block us emotionally as well as mentally.
Through the mediation of an impartial third party, the mediator, these conflicts are resolved amicably. Mediation is voluntary, clear and solution-oriented. In contrast to legal proceedings, the solution is not handed over. You remain the expert of the conflict.
You determine the topics. I support you in finding, hearing and understanding each other's positions. This opens up perspectives for finding a fair and sustainable solution that takes your respective needs into account. Finding the solution then creates the foundation for moving forward and growing personally and also interpersonally.
In a free initial consultation, we first clarify whether mediation is advisable in your case or whether other approaches are more appropriate. We clarify the topic of the mediation and you define together what is important to you as conflict parties. If necessary, we also take time for this at the second meeting. Already in the clarification of the conflict topic there may be disagreement. We define the rules of communication and behavior that you need in order to talk to each other constructively. In a further step, you explain your positions, your perspectives, your interests and wishes. For this, we take as much space and time as necessary, in order to then collect and illuminate options and solution approaches together. In this way, with my support, you work out an autonomous and sustainable solution that all parties to the conflict can live with. We record this solution and the concrete implementation steps in an amicable agreement in order to prevent misunderstandings and to support you in the implementation.
It is crucial that you seek mediation and that you come to me voluntarily. As a mediator, I support all parties equally and ensure that the process is fair. In doing so, approaches of Positive Psychology, especially the strength- and growth-oriented, shape my mediation competence. As a mediator I am not allowed to give legal advice.
Experience shows that between three and ten meetings are necessary to reach a result. Mediation therefore saves costs and time.
I offer mediation for the following areas
- School and education
- Family and partnership
- Neighborhood disputes
- (non-profit) organizations
- Public Authorities
- Associations
- (non-profit) Organisations
I gladly share more in an initial consultation.
Please contact me at mail[at]pelzer-konfliktpraevention.de
What else am I offering?
Seeing and inspiring potential is my passion, as is a commitment to change. For me, it is crucial that we start with ourselves when it comes to change.
We experience on different levels every day how necessary it is for us to change something. Personal growth challenges us just as much as getting along well with others. So many of our conflicts could be solved by being more in balance with ourselves, by being more understanding of the concerns of others, by better listening and looking without the distorted view of projection. I am convinced that we strengthen ourselves by strengthening others as well. To grow, we depend on cooperation and rethinking.
CIT - Compassionate Integrity Training
You think something has to change fundamentally in our society and wonder where to start? I would be happy to introduce you to a great training program (CIT) that inspires personal and special growth and will inspire you to carry what you have gained into our society, which we can thus shape for the better.
Would you like to achieve more self-acceptance and self-compassion? CIT might be of interest to you.
I am convinced that acting in accordance with our own values and with compassion is a win-win situation. I believe, exploring our own bias, being able to understand other people's reality, cultivating tolerance and respect for those who think differently to be essential. Tolerance and open-mindedness is cultivated through compassion which requires to be able to empathize with other people in a resilient way without losing one's own needs out of sight. This yet again is cultivated by Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT).
Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT) is a multi-part resiliency-orientated and strength-based training programme, developed by the Center for Compassion and Secular Ethics of Life University. It focuses on and builds toward compassionate integrity: the ability to live one’s life in accordance with one’s values, acknowledging our broad denominator: our common humanity.
Engaging with complex systems requires the critical insights of selves, others and the interconnected systems. It requires self-care as much as knowing oneself as interacting with integrity and acting ethically with discernment. By deepening understanding and the cultivation of compassion and impartiality, the course aims to support participants to be the change they wish to see in the world.
The good news is, we are wired to act compassionate and kind. There is more good news: neuroscience confirms: our brain is malleable, and we can change our mind to change our brain for the benefit of othersand ourselves. CIT taps this potential and extends it beyond bias and partiality and offers tools to calm our nervous system for optimal wellbeing and decision making.
CIT covers a range of skills from self-regulation and self-compassion to compassion for others acknowledging the radical interdependence of ourselves with others and the systems we are living and working in. CIT cultivates human values like gratitude, empathy and (self-) compassion as skills, so we can thrive as individuals, socially and as society, within a healthy environment. The course is based on cutting-edge developments in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, trauma- informed care, peace and conflict studies, and contemplative science.
Although CIT deals with values and concepts like compassion and integrity, it is based on a secular approach to universal ethics based on common sense, common experience and science, rather than a particular culture or religion. Secular ethics can be useful to people of any or no religious background, while not conflicting with any particular religious values. The word “secular” in no way implies a stance that is against religion; on the contrary, it implies inclusivity and a respect for all.
Understanding exactly what our values are is part of the CIT journey, and they are arrived at by investigating and examining things for oneself guided by the course, using common sense, common experience and science.
Reasons why I am involved in Cit since 2016
Justice, working against bias, seeing other’s potential and inspiring it is my passion as well as the commitment to change. How necessary it is for us to make a difference, we experience every day on different levels. Personal growth challenges us as much as constructive collaboration. So many of our conflicts could be solved by being more in sync with ourselves, with more empathic concern and compassion, by better listening and looking without the distorted view of projection. I am convinced that we strengthen ourselves by also strengthening others. We depend on cooperation and rethinking to grow. The contribution of every one is valuable and essential regarding the small and large global challenges of our time.
From October 2016 to March 2018, I was a member of the CIT working group of scholars and practitioners supporting the two authors of CIT Brendan Ozawa-de Silva (PhD) and Michael Karlin (PhD) at the Center for Compassion Integrity and Secular Ethics at Life University in the USA. Moving back to Germany, I translated CIT into German and am happy to share CIT with all those who are interested, so that the community, which is already growing strongly worldwide, will grow also in German-speaking countries.
I co-facilitate English CIT courses through the CCISE network, also with my international colleagues, and in the Mindful African Initiative of Timothy Onyango, Kenya, Africa , and on request.
If interested, please contact me at mail[at]cit-berlin.org .
About me
My name is Anja Pelzer-Brennholt, and I’m glad you are visiting my website.
I am very grateful that I can work in accordance with different values and strengths through various professional fields, all of which share one common thread: I’m interested in people and in supporting them. My passion lies in recognizing potential and inspiring others, as well as helping people overcome their fear of change and supporting them in ways that align with their goals.
I work as lecturer, systemic coach, certified positive psychology consultant, and alternative practitioner for psychotherapy. I am a trainer for SEE Learning, the Community Resiliency Model (CRM®), and Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT), as well as a mediator and licensed attorney.
I love spending time with family and friends, traveling, getting to know other cultures, realizing how much we have in common, and I love advocating for greater compassion in society.
In addition to my state exams in law (1995, 1998) and a Master’s degree in Humanitarian Assistance (1996), I earned a Master of Science in Positive Psychology in the U.S. (2018). For many years, I worked in research management at a large non-university scientific organization. I have also gained experience in the fields of human rights and development policy abroad (United Nations; Zimbabwe; India; USA).
While psychology has long fascinated me, it was actually my initial training and my interest in international Human Rights that led me to Positive Psychology. In 2015, while working as a lecturer at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, USA, I met two researchers at a meeting who invited me to help them implement a multi-part, research-based program for personal, social, and systemic growth. It was through them that I was introduced to Positive Psychology. Before moving back to Germany, I completed a MSc in Positive Psychology in the U.S.A and was overjoyed to learn that, thanks to the ↗DGPP, there is also a wonderful connection point in Germany. After about 20 years in research management, I decided in 2019 to go into private practice in order to share the valuable concepts of Positive Psychology with the world as a lecturer, consultant, systemic Coach, and now also through psychotherapy.
Memberships
I am a member of the↗IPPA, the International Positive Psychology Association, the ↗DACH PP, the German-speaking Umbrella Association for Positive Psychology, ↗ACBS the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, ↗DGKV, the German-speaking Society for Contextual Behavioural Sciences, as well as a member of The International Honor Society in Psychology ↗PsiChi.
Please note that none of my offers imply legal advice.