My familiarity with different systems comes from studying, teaching and practicing as a student, postdoc, researcher and lecturer in Switzerland, Germany, USA, Canada, and Austria. I had training and partial training in client centered therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, as well as dynamic and Gestalt approaches. Ongoing practical work with in-and outpatients is a pivotal basis for my research and teaching. A central emphasis in my academic work has been on individual case conceptualizations, and on the therapists. The extent to which successful therapy depends on their good judgment is not reflected in the sparse empirically based insight we have into therapists.
Therapists are the ones who relate etiological and treatment knowledge to the individual patient.
We have made progress, but a lot remains to be done. Ultimately, however, an approach can never be better than the therapists using it for a specific patient. My main interest is in custom tailoring a therapeutic procedure, determined in part by the patient's main disorder, but in addition by many other factors such as interpersonal needs and limitations. I have always tried not to shy away from conceptually and methodologically tricky questions, but to use and develop adequate concepts and research methods. In research, I try to combine advantages of qualitative and quantitative approaches.