I am
The "I" is a central concept for me, in witnessing my own existence, in my thinking, in my professional actions, in my research, as well as in reflecting on the human condition as a whole: Who is this "I", this experience of an "I am" that experiences this world?
This is evident in my work and research in the field of adult development, which explores what people's perspectives and conceptions are of what perceives itself as an "I" in this world. Even in the context of aging, it is the I and the experience of "I am" to which we are repeatedly thrown back in our developmental and life questions - and where the letting go of the experience of "I am" ultimately reveals the last great task of our earthly existence. And also in my research on the condition we call dementia in our present worldview, a condition in which the I seems to be lost more and more, the experience of the "I am" is also a central category of consideration.
I - my professional being and doing
As a gerontologist and education specialist, I combine expertise from the gerontological, health, nursing and educational sciences with knowledge and insights from adult development, consciousness and brain research, from integral and transpersonal theory, and this on the basis of decades of experience as a teacher, trainer, consultant, supervisor and coach in education and health care. Gerontopsychiatric care was my focus of activity for very many years, dementia the topic that "found" me early in my professional career and has not let go until today. In addition, I have become acquainted with many other fields in education, social services and health care, which cannot be listed after more than 25 years of professional activity.
My special interest and expertise lies in the intersection of personal transformative consciousness experiences, scientific consciousness research, and dementia - where I bring together extraordinary perspectives on a seemingly challenging phenomenon.
My special competence is to be able to explain complex issues in a simple and understandable way and at the same time to be an interlocutor for complex thinkers, consciousness researchers and people who want to reflect on consciousness experiences and issues especially in the field of health beyond the classical worldview. This is where my own experiences with various states of consciousness and changes in consciousness, my ongoing process of embodying transpersonal structure levels, my broad professional expertise, my intensive academic training with two university degrees, one in the humanities and one in the natural sciences, and my ability to take complex perspectives all come into play. At the same time, one of my favorite parts of my job was the regular supervision sessions I had the privilege of conducting for several years with the cleaning team of a nursing home - I am not interested in the educational background of my clients and participants, but in their interest in the subject matter I am trying to convey. If this is present, I am able to initiate educational and change processes in almost everyone that are truly sustainable.
Vita - my formal professional education
- Preclinical medical studies, University of Göttingen
- University diploma in educational sciences, 1997, University of Göttingen
- Person-centered counselor, 2000, Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Gesprächsführung
- Gerontologist, M.Sc., 2011, University of Erlangen
- Integral Coach, Coaching Center Berlin, 2014
Areas of focus of my previous work as a self-employed gerontologist and adult education specialist
- Case supervisor in geropsychiatric care
- Lecturer in long-term care facilities and at universities, academies and nursing colleges
- Coach in the field of consciousness and adult development
- Coach in the field of dementia
- Management consultant on issues of aging and dementia
- Communication trainer, facilitator & leadership trainer
- Independent researcher with research interests in aging, consciousness & dementia
Personal development in professional context
- Continuous further education (professional, didactic-methodical, linguistic, self-reflexive, body-oriented, knowledge-expanding, consciousness-expanding) in organized as well as free learning contexts, continuous professional as well as consciousness-related reading as well as several therapeutic processes, scorings in different development models, collegial intervision and own supervision were and are part of my development process.
- 18 years of life as a professionally independent working single mother have also shaped me in a very special way.
- In addition to an untameable epistemological research urge, which took me beyond the limits of personal existential experience, I have a slight penchant for adventure, which I lived out together with my joy of movement and the need to be in nature, mostly while traveling by bike in my life so far - a form of active meditation, which allowed me healing time-outs from my professional activities.
Retreat
Through a radical, unintended shift in consciousness a few years ago, my perspective on this world fundamentally changed and expanded. After a two-year retreat to integrate this experience, during which I was only sporadically active professionally, I realized that it was no longer possible for me to teach the classical orthodox medical-psychiatric understanding of dementia in the form that had previously been my main field of work.
During this retreat I devoted myself mainly to an intensive phenomenological research of the experienced change of consciousness and its effects on my being and my altered experience of the "I am", to the inner as well as professional work with models of consciousness development, and especially to the intensive study of the different dimensions and states of human consciousness - including dementia - from a scientific as well as a spiritual perspective.
The texts on this website reflect part of the development my being has undergone and the insights I have gained from it as well as from my intensive transdisciplinary study of consciousness.
Now
Currently, my work focuses on exploring an involutionary perspective on consciousness in general and on dementia in particular, and on the conception of a Transpersonal Gerontology, as it finds its first expression on this website; for all topics, corresponding information is already available on this website or is in preparation.
From my sometimes complex perspectives on consciousness, I continue to consult, write, and teach also on dementia and to accompany people with corresponding questions. A detailed listing of ways I can accompany, consult, teach and support individuals, groups and teams can be found under "Offerings".
A deeper insight into what triggered these radical changes in me a few years ago can be found under "Nothing".