Finding an English-speaking couples therapist in Germany who does sustained depth work, not communication skills, not six sessions, not homework, is difficult. The Krankenkasse system has long waitlists and operates in German. Private English-speaking therapists exist in Berlin and Munich but the pool is small and they're often fully booked.
I work with couples who need to work in English and happen to be in Germany. That might mean you moved here together and the relocation changed the balance in ways neither of you has fully named. It might mean something that was already there got louder when the external structure fell away. It might mean neither of you can identify when it started, just that something is different now.
Couples work here is about finding what the argument is actually about, which is usually not what it appears to be about. The same fight in different forms. The move that changed who has power and who doesn't. The relationship that's become the whole ecosystem, and what that does.
The work
The work I do is relational and pattern-focused. I don't run through intake checklists or assign exercises between sessions. I pay attention to what happens in the room: what you're saying, what you're not saying, the moments when something shifts or goes flat or speeds up. That's the material we work with.
Most people arrive already knowing the story of their situation. They've told it to themselves a hundred times and always land in the same place. What's missing is a different angle, someone watching in real time who can name what's invisible from inside it. That's what I offer. Not interpretation from a distance, but attention in the room, offered as it happens.
I work with individuals and couples. Individual work is usually about finding the pattern underneath the presenting problem, the thing that keeps recurring in different forms across different circumstances. Couples work is about finding what the argument is really about, which is rarely what it appears to be about. Both come down to the same thing: seeing what you haven't been able to see, and from there, actually being able to do something different.
Being in Germany as a couple
Germany puts a specific kind of pressure on relationships. The work culture is intense. The administrative life is dense. Social circles open slowly. For a couple where one person is German and the other is not, or where both partners are foreign, the cumulative friction produces strain that often looks like a relationship problem and is partly a structural one.
The binational couple comes up often. One partner grew up here, has the family, the language, the friends from school, the easy answer to where home is. The other partner is operating in their second or third language, calibrating constantly to a culture that prizes precision and reserve. What gets called a communication problem is often a script mismatch. The German partner has been told for years that they seem closed off. The foreign partner has spent years trying to read warmth in places where warmth was never the point. Naming this changes what the arguments are actually about.
For two-foreigner couples in places like Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, or corporate Berlin, the pattern is different. The work hours are long and uneven between you. One person is integrated through their workplace and the other is integrating much more slowly. The asymmetry runs through small daily decisions about whose social plans count, whose career sets the calendar, whose tiredness wins on a Friday night.
What couples bring
The arguments that surface usually have a deeper question underneath. Sometimes the question is whose career drove the move and whether that conversation ever actually closed. Sometimes it is about a family back home that wants more visits than you can sustain. Often it is about the slow accumulation of small unsaid things that German cultural reserve, or the partner who has internalized it, has made hard to bring up directly.
I also work with couples on the standard material: recurring conflict, growing distance, infidelity and trust repair, sexlessness, the question of whether to stay together. Whatever you are bringing, the work looks at what is happening underneath the surface fight, not the fight itself.
How couples therapy in English works in Germany
Sessions are online via secure video. Both partners can be on the same screen, or in separate locations across Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, or anywhere else in the country. Sessions are 60 minutes, usually weekly. A free 15-minute call comes first.
The work is depth-oriented. We do not run through communication-skills modules. We pay attention to the pattern producing the same argument under different surfaces, which is almost always the actual material.
Fees are in USD by card or bank transfer. There is no Krankenkasse involvement and no German health record from our work.