Martin Schmid

I apply a client-centered and holistic approach that empower individuals and couples to explore their inner worlds freely, fostering self-awareness, resilience, and personal growth.

EFT Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples: Relationships and encounters are central and formative experiences in every person's life. Nowhere else do we experience such closeness and vulnerability. Learning to perceive and appreciate this emotional vulnerability as a strength and resource can be a key moment in the relationship for many couples. This makes it possible to enter a new, deeper phase.

EFT is very consistently experience-oriented. This means that we don't just talk about patterns and dynamics—we work live in the moment when they arise. Typical phases in this process:

1. Stabilization (de-escalation) We make patterns and dynamics visible, reduce escalation, and create a framework in which emotional security can be experienced again. In conflicts, we often only see the “loud,” distancing emotions on the surface: anger, criticism, devaluation, annoyance—or, on the other hand, coldness, silence, withdrawal. EFT helps to reveal the primary, more vulnerable emotions underneath, which often drive stress and can primarily (re)activate compassion and attraction: insecurity, fear, shame, loneliness, the feeling of “not being important,” of being hurt or losing the other person.

When couples learn to speak from this softer place, the dynamic often changes noticeably: an attack becomes an attempt to connect. Withdrawal becomes protection from being overwhelmed. “You are always...” becomes “I am alone with this right now...” This helps to demoralize the conflict: it is no longer about “right” or “wrong,” but about secure vs. insecure contact.

2. Focusing on attachment needs (restructuring) The second phase consists of expressing vulnerable attachment needs—in such a way that the other person can hear and respond to them. This often gives rise to new “moments of attachment”: small but crucial experiences of “you are there,” “I can reach you,” “I am not alone.”

3. Consolidate & transfer to everyday life (consolidation) The new experiences become suitable for everyday use: conflicts are recognized earlier, repaired more quickly, and the relationship learns new routines of connectedness.

In this process, key success factors include a gradually more mindful approach to attachment emotions, acquired attachment styles, and the associated cultivation of emotional intelligence, which contribute significantly to change and development in couple relationships.

In EFT (Emotion-Focused Therapy), it is the mindful handling of attachment emotions, acquired attachment styles, and the associated cultivation of emotional intelligence that contribute significantly to change and development in couple relationships. I offer a systemic, and non-judgmental framework that promotes emotional validation, closeness, and an attitude of strength and personal responsibility in the encounter.

Systemic therapy for individuals: Most people today no longer go to therapy because they do too little for themselves - they often experience on a daily basis this pressure: to regulate, control, and optimize themselves. Often, life feels more alien and more like “functioning.”

What is lost in the process is essentially: Resonance - a lively, flexible connection to oneself, to others, and to the world. In such cases, relationships become harsh or distant, increasingly draining one's energy. Contact with the world and the roles experienced within it becomes rigid, losing openness, lightness, and vitality.

With empirically validated approaches such as Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Schema Therapy (Parts Work), and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), these relational patterns, dynamics, and blockages become visible and can be changed through corrective experience and therapeutic co-regulation.

Traumatherapy / C-PTSD: A trauma-sensitive focus of my emotion-focused work addresses the complex experience of (toxic) shame and the development of authentic self-esteem. Here, the focus is on healthy coping and integration of traumatic developmental and relational experiences such as emotional neglect and C-PTSD.

Attitude: A culturally sensitive and inclusive therapeutic environment, where people with diverse value systems and needs feel welcome, respected, and understood is of utmost importance for a safe setting. Therefore a mindful, compassionate, and validating attitude plays a key role in my conversations. This self-esteem-promoting approach promotes awareness, emotional regulation, and “self-understanding,”.

My therapeutic work is particularly inspired and informed by Prof. Sue Johnson (EFCT), Prof. Eugene Gendlin (Focusing), and Dr. Gabor Maté (trauma-sensitive therapy).

For more information visit www.praxis-martin-schmid.de

Since 2018: Self-employed as a clinical and health psychologist, consultant, trainer and therapist in private practice

Since 2015: Consulting and organizational consulting on workplace health promotion and WHM (workplace health management)

2016-2020: Professional development of a program for health coaching

2018-2020: Suitability diagnostics certified according to TfV and emergency psychology/crisis prevention in railroad and rail transport

Since 2022: Employed organizational consultant and trainer for a nationwide institute for organizational, employee and management consulting (Berlin)

2013 Diploma in Psychology (University of Vienna) 2015 Postgraduate additional qualification in clinical and health psychology 2015 Trainer for stress prevention acc. to Prof. Kaluza 2018 Certified MBSR mindfulness trainer, Freiburg/Berlin 2021 Systemic therapist (in further training), Berlin 2022 Further training in focusing counseling (DFI, Würzburg) 2022 State-certified alternative practitioner for psychotherapy, Berlin 2023 Mental Health First Aid training (MHFA) 2023 Certified Systemic Consultant (SIA Institute Berlin) 2024-2025 Advanced Core Skills Trainings in EFCT (Emotion Focused Couples Therapy), Berlin

Various further training courses in occupational integration management, risk assessment of mental stress (in accordance with § 5 ArbSchG), emergency psychology.