A note on taking on new patients
As of September 2026. Our therapy places are currently taken. We continue to offer the psychotherapeutic consultation (psychotherapeutische Sprechstunde) unchanged — it is the statutory point of entry to psychotherapy in Germany, and in it we clarify with you whether treatment is indicated and which kind, even where we cannot offer the place ourselves. If matters are urgent, we say so and help with the next steps.
Places in consultation, acute treatment or therapy are allocated by the appointment service of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians: 116 117, around the clock, also online.
Why we are cautious about beginning new treatments, plainly: from 1 January 2027 the remuneration of outpatient psychotherapy in Germany will be returned to the capped overall budget (budgetierte Gesamtvergütung). How many treatment hours per practice will then still be paid for is not decided — it follows from the rules of the Valuation Committee and from the fee distribution scheme of our regional association; exceptions and the continuation of treatments already begun are still being debated by the legislator. While that remains open, we handle our capacity carefully. The reason is simple: a psychotherapy that has begun should not break off half way because a quota has run out. We consider it more responsible to begin fewer treatments now than to end running ones later. We do not offer statutory places in exchange for private payment.
As soon as the situation is clear we will change this notice and say so here.
Dr. Scherer’s private psychiatric consultations and the assessment of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are unaffected by this: our statutory licence is a psychotherapeutic one with a half treatment mandate; these services lie outside it and are invoiced under the German medical fee schedule (GOÄ).
Within German guideline psychotherapy our practice offers behavioural therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy. These are scientifically examined and lastingly effective treatments for mental and psychosomatic illness. Depending on the indication, more or less focused and, where appropriate, manualised approaches are available.
Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Focused short-term therapy and crisis intervention serve the swiftest possible improvement of an acute episode. The factors leading into the acute crisis are delimited and worked on in a resource-oriented way. Themes reaching beyond that are named, but not worked through, where they do not appear directly responsible for the acute crisis.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is indicated where interwoven difficulties are found that keep producing acute crises and cannot be delimited one by one — long-standing, repeating and self-amplifying pathological patterns of symptom or relationship. Access to one’s own resources and resilience is then severely impeded by repeated experiences of disappointment or by deep mistrust of oneself or of other people, so that short-term or motivational approaches can gain little purchase. This is the case, for example, with enduring feelings of deep existential anxiety, inner strangeness, dejection, mistrust, or separateness from other people, from oneself or from one’s own body.
Here the emotional states that govern a life move into the foreground, in their psychosomatic and psychosocial connections. A psychoanalytic approach (in an individual setting) therefore needs more time and a higher frequency of sessions, so that the prevailing atmosphere of a life can become perceptible and workable in the consulting room. Analytic group therapy is offered in addition.
Behavioural therapy
Psychological complaints can have very different causes. Often it is not a single event that explains them, but the interplay of several factors: personal experiences and relationships, biological preconditions, current circumstances, stress, and learned patterns of thinking and behaving.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) works at this interplay. It assumes that thoughts, feelings, bodily reactions and behaviour are connected and influence one another. Our experiences shape how we perceive ourselves, others and the world. What was helpful at one stage of life can become burdensome under changed conditions. Certain patterns of thinking and behaving can contribute to complaints arising or persisting. At the same time, new experiences and changed ways of thinking and acting can alter that interplay again.
Modern CBT comprises a wide range of scientifically grounded methods and concepts. Among them are work with distressing thoughts and behavioural patterns, the deliberate build-up of helpful activities, stepwise exposure to fears, and the trying out of new behaviour. Mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches, work with emotions and personal values, and schema-therapeutic and metacognitive concepts also have their place.
From a shared understanding of your individual situation, concrete therapeutic goals are developed. Depending on the concern, distressing patterns of thought and behaviour can be examined, new perspectives developed, or situations previously avoided approached step by step. Dealing with feelings, stress and relationships can also play an important part. What matters is to make new experiences possible and to develop, together, ways that are helpful in daily life and sustainable in the long run.