10 Questions with Volker Krohn

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

• In my 20s I embarked on a journey of trying to find my ‘Self’. Having grown up in a good upper middle class family in Germany, I could not find any life satisfaction from participating in the consumer ‘economic miracle’ of post -war Germany. So I left, as many other young people also did at this time, to find ‘enlightenment’, by travelling through India, participating in meditation retreats and listening to wise Indian men, who basically told me that I was a ‘Buddha’ already, that my “suffering was bogus” and that I was truly “bliss, love and free”.
  
  Even though this sounded great, I continued to experience a discrepancy between those ‘enlightened’ statements and my experience of myself. So I started to investigate cognitively and emotionally, through therapeutic models, this discrepancy between my ‘original Buddha nature’ and my lived life experience.
  
  Then, when I turned 30, I participated in a program called the Hoffman Process and it changed my life. For the first time I really experienced myself as innately ‘lovable’ and that love was the basis of all human relatedness. I was invited by the founder Bob Hoffman to participate in the first training course conducted here in Australia. Since then, I have continued to participate in various forms of psychotherapeutic trainings to help me develop both personally and professionally.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional/personal development?

• From my exploration of various Spiritual practises over the years, like Yoga, Vipassana meditation, Tantra, Animism, Existentialism, Prayer, etc. I have come to the realization that human consciousness can evolve to an experiential connectedness with existence. The structure of our personality and behaviour is very much influenced by the familial, social and environmental conditions that we as humans were exposed to as children.
  
  Breakdowns and deficiencies in the interpersonal relationship with our primary caregivers can result in a more or less repetitious conflict between our thinking and feeling functions. This subconscious adaptation develops within the individual in order to buffer the pain and loss associated with those fundamental feelings of ‘unloveability’ and ‘not belonging’. This engenders a collapse in being able to distinguish between ‘describable reality’ and ‘ones personal interpretation’ which in turn perpetuates the compulsive repetition of breakdowns in both interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.
  
  As we learn to take responsibility for the fixations of our thoughts and the unfulfilled passions of our emotional self, we can find a door to open up to a more peaceful, more connected and more mindful sense of being in the world.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

• Many people that I see in my practise suffer from depression, anxiety, interpersonal breakdown, interpersonal defensiveness and reactivity, resulting in a sense of frustration with life and an inability to make change.
  
  As human beings we cannot avoid suffering, however we can learn to suffer well. I have a deep interest in the human experience and the various environments and dimensions we inhabit. When we are reflected in our experiencing, with benevolent eyes and understanding, I have witnessed the power of change and healing that can occur. Helping people to be able to live with an open heart towards first themselves and then, consequently, toward others, is what provides meaning for me in my work.

• What method/s do you use?

• I am trained in various therapeutic modalities. I first practised as a Naturopath and deep connective tissue body worker. Since becoming a Psychotherapist, I have trained as a Family Therapist, as well as in Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellation work, as a Hoffman Process Facilitator, Inner Child work, Self Psychology , Trauma work, the Enneagram System, Voice Dialogue, and Arts Therapy. I also very much believe in the healing properties of developing an appropriate sense of humour and being able to laugh at one’s Self.
  
  My over all approach is very client focussed. Depending upon whatever real life issues have brought the person to me, I will modify my approach. As I come from a strong inter-subjective perspective and it’s implied equality with a client, I favour process-orientated modalities. Helping people to experience a consensus with another person about what actually occurred, free of subjective interpretation, is the first step to becoming aware of the part in us that creates meaning and the patterns that we might follow.
  
  Once that awareness is established, I try to provide a safe environment for people to do their emotional release work, so that the client can operate in his or her daily life with a higher level of mindfulness, authenticity, emotional robustness and personal agency.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

• I believe very strongly in establishing a clear therapeutic goal for my clients. Once that is determined, we look at the hindrances that obstruct the achievement of that goal. By focusing on an individuals patterns and the trigger points that ignite issues, I can accompany them in making self directed choices and forging change. I also frequently check in with my clients to see whether the work is beneficial and what has changed in their experience of themselves and the world around them.
  
  Clients that also commit to participating in the Hoffman Process (an 8 day intensive deep, short- term therapy) usually feel an immediate reduction of their symptoms after the completion of the course. The integration of the experience can vary and is dependent on the client’s commitment to heal and to honour themselves and others.

• How has therapy made you a better person?

• All the inner work that I have done over the years, has helped me to develop a greater willingness to experience anything that comes to meet me in life. It has also made me more aware of my own personal emotional trigger points. Having grown up in a family that had high expectations of me, I used to project onto my partners, that they also had such high expectations of me and that I was responsible for fulfilling those needs for them. This put me under a lot of pressure and led to over-responsibility. Together with an inability to express my own needs in relationship or to believe that I had any right to any needs, I created over time, a build up of resentment. I expressed my resentment by either becoming withdrawn, withholding, being grumpy or simply cancelling the relationship and moving on to a new one and repeating the same dynamics.
  
  Therapy has helped me to become more conscious and to change my ability to balance the need to take care of myself and the need to take care of others. It helped me to grow in love within my marriage and towards my children and not only to embrace my emotions and vulnerabilities but also to be more grounded in my Being.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

• I have a deep interest in people. I enjoy being able to be with others in a meaningful way. I love to see people transform and to be able to live more fulfilled lives. I always learn from clients and I am deeply grateful for the trust that they put in me. Helping to change consciousness gives me meaning in my life.

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

• Looking at my receding hairline I have to answer ‘yes’. As Buddha used to say: “Life is suffering.” We cannot escape it. We all have to face our own mortality and loss in different ways. We are confronted at times with a sense of meaninglessness in life. We are the one’s who make that meaning. And if we do not trust the authority of our own knowing, then we can really struggle. When I have a ‘bad hair day’, I try to suffer well.

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

• The Beatles named it in the 1960’s – ‘All you need is Love’. Thousands of years of War, Pestilence, Plague and Catastrophe and the resulting trauma reaction, has left many people bereft and disconnected from their essential self and the ability to recognize the innate connectedness of existence and our inherent loveability. In the 1st World, we live very time poor lives. In the pursuit of manufactured needs, there is not much time left for relationships – especially with our children and significant Other.
  
  Today, people’s need for belonging is conducted over social media, where a ‘public face’ is created and displayed for general consumption. This can engender an anxiety about being judged by their community for falling short of perceived social expectations and further separate people from themselves and each other.

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

• I have found a lot of inspiration from the Irish poet David Whyte. Particularly the following poem titled ‘Self Portrait’ which I have shared over the years with many of my clients:
  
  Self Portrait
  
  It doesn't interest me if there is one God
  or many gods.
  I want to know if you belong or feel
  abandoned,
  if you know despair or can see it in others.
  I want to know
  if you are prepared to live in the world
  with its harsh need
  to change you.
  If you can look back
  with firm eyes
  saying, “this is where I stand’.
  I want to know
  if you know
  how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
  falling toward
  the center of your longing.
  I want to know
  if you are willing
  to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
  and the bitter
  unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
  I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
  the gods speak of God.
  
  David Whyte