Elisabeth Benn - Psychotherapeutische Beratung nach Viktor Frankl

 

Elisabeth Benn

Psychotherapeutic Counselling
according to Viktor Frankl

 
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Elisabeth Benn
Elisabeth Benn
About me
'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.'
Marcel Proust

I was born and raised in Northern Germany and moved to the French part of Switzerland in 2006. I am married with three grown-up children.

Motivation
Privately and professionally I have repeatedly crossed geographical and cultural borders. Wherever I went I encountered people who were facing hard times. These encounters and experiences resulted in the desire to do further training in order to work as psychotherapeutic counsellor. I did my logotherapeutic training in Tübingen, Germany (www.logotherapie.net) and supplemented it with a course in couple therapy in Münsingen, Germany.

Education

Nursing studies Christian-Albrechts-Universitätsklinikum, Kiel
Qualification in ‘Palliative Care’ Elisabeth Krankenhaus, Recklinghausen
Qualification in ‘Logotherapy and Existential Analysis’, Tübingen
Qualification in ‘Couple Counselling based on Logotherapy’, Dr. Renate Mrusek
Qualification in ‘PITT – Psychodynamic- Imaginative-Traumatherapy’, Prof. Dr. Luise Reddemann

Tanzania
Being on the move, parting and recommencement have always been part of my life and I have found this to have enriching aspects as well as downsides. Many of the most defining experiences in my life happened when we lived in Tanzania, East-Africa, at the onset of the AIDS epidemic, when the impact of the disease was changing the lives of many very rapidly. On the one side I was confronted with poverty and other difficult living conditions, and on the other, I experienced a tremendous cultural richness, a strong will to cope with daily difficulties and, what impressed me most, an enormous zest for life. In retrospect I think that living in Tanzania has taught me to handle my own problems more easily.

Rwanda
Over the past few years, a collaboration between the German, French, and Rwandan Logotherapeutic Associations has developed in which I am involved and contribute from my various experiences. Frankl’s core statements that the spiritual person of man cannot be destroyed has encouraged many people to process the experiences of the genocide in 1995 more in depth. In this, Frankl’s own experiences during and after the Holocaust are essential and are experienced as a hopeful approach.

Palliative Care
After having finished my Nursing Studies in Germany I was very much interested in Oncology and got some work experience in Palliative Care in Great Britain and the States. Following up on this I worked for many years as Palliative Care Nurse in a Home Care Team (Tübinger Projekt: Häusliche Betreuung Schwerkranker) in Tübingen. The comprehensive care consisting of pain and symptom control as well as nursing and social care including counselling was challenging and at the same time very rewarding. I was impressed to see that in seemingly hopeless situations patients struggled for answers and many of them eventually were able to cope with and accept their situation. Being accompanied and cared for in this way in their last period in life enabled many to die peacefully and with dignity.

Family
Another integral part of my life is my family. The common wish to support people who live in less privileged parts of the world, led my husband and me, and later the whole family, to live in various places abroad. Frequent relocations and being exposed to various different cultures have enriched the lives of our children and have caused our nuclear family to become a very important foundation in their lives. On the other hand they have been challenged considerably by frequent farewells from dear friends and places they loved. Back home in Germany they found that they could not share their experiences with many of their peers. This resulted in a feeling of being different and hampered their feeling of belonging. Getting to know the ‘Third Culture Kid’ theory was an excellent resource for them to understand what had caused their difficulties to reintegrate and settle.

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