About me

Neuro Linguistic Programming is a way of looking at the world. In the 1970s, there were researchers(Richard Bandler and John Grinder) who asked, “What do successful therapists do differently than unsuccessful therapists? As mathematical researchers, the founders of NLP began to explore communication patterns. From what was discovered and learned here at the time, practical tools and ways for communication and the influence of communication on a successful, happy life were written down. Put more simply, what you pay attention to, what you think and do has an influence in and on your life. Hypnosis as Paul McKenna sometimes gives a brief demonstration of it, is one of the NLP techniques that I also use if you wish to do so to initiate your desired changes in your love life. Basic elements of NLP are: cognitive distortions (learned untruths), awareness of thinking styles of yourself and others and the 16 presuppositions of NLP.

Led by Femke Mortimore, I did this coaching training The Quantum Leap Coach System, focusing on what I call meaning questions and the impact the answers have on your mental state, your physical state and your life. This method that builds on NLP models, is profound and transformative in the sense that it goes beyond creating new habits through the familiar way of repeating and monitoring new behaviors. As a coach, I look for the moment when you have appropriated an unhelpful, limiting belief in your life, so to speak, and you have come to experience it as “true. We transform this limiting belief into a helping, encouraging and empowering belief – for example with the use of hypnosis – so that you embrace your love life more and more easily as it has been and you can continue your love journey with confidence in yourself. In your own unique way.

John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman founded The Gottman Institute, which engages in a scientific approach to love relationships. It conducts research on love relationships focusing on the following question: What do successful happy couples do differently than couples who are not happy or break up? This institute also provides training and therapy for couples struggling with their love relationship. This training offers practical exercises for dealing with conflict while paying attention to shared meaning. They also call this building “The House of the Healthy Relationship.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a therapeutic approach used to treat emotional trauma. For love trauma, persistent heartbreak and love blocks, EMDR can help by reducing and processing the negative feelings, thoughts and persistent images associated with these experiences. It’s great to see how quickly you can achieve results with this (see the reviews on the main page). I only apply it ethically. This means that I do not apply EMDR, for example, for being “different than average in love. I do apply EMDR if you have experienced transgressive behavior or bullying because you are ‘different than average in love’. So with me no EMDR because you feel or are lhbgtqia+! That is not ok and can even be retraumatizing!

Esther Perel is a world-renowned psychotherapist of Polish-Jewish descent who focuses on the tension and contradictions between the need for security and the desire for autonomy in relationships, especially love relationships. She has become known for her expansive and respectful view of cheating in love relationships. She states, ” We are not looking for a new love, but for another version of ourselves.”

In her annual online multi-day workshop “Sessions,” Esther Perel brings together clinicians, therapists and coaches from diverse backgrounds. The goal here is to share tools that we -helpers and inspirers – can use to help others deal with today’s challenges of a love relationship.

2018 was the first time I did a live workshop by Esther Perel. It was called “Love in Proportion.

At The Gottman Institute, I took an in-depth course on working with couples dealing with infidelity and trauma, such as PTSD. In this course I learned how trauma affects not only the individual, but also the relationship, and how as a therapist you can help build step-by-step safety, trust and recovery.

The approach combines knowledge from trauma psychology with practical tools from the Gottman Method, such as strengthening emotional connection, learning to have difficult conversations and dealing with triggers. It also uses the proven three-step model in recovery from an affair: Atonement (recovery and regret), Attunement (reconnecting) and Attachment (building lasting intimacy and trust)..

This training has given me additional tools to guide couples who are stuck after profound events so that they can not only experience peace and connection again, but even eventually find the path of joy and lightness together again.

The training The 7 Pillars of a Good Love Relationship helps couples strengthen their relationship, improve communication and deepen the bond between them. Based on over 40 years of research by Dr. John Gottman, you’ll learn what successful couples do differently and get concrete tools to get started yourself. The training is practical, positive and focused on greater understanding, connection and fun together.

I took the accredited training at The Gottman Institute to be able to use this method in both group and individual coaching sessions. So you can choose what suits you best: working together on your relationship in a safe, small group, or individually and completely tailored to your situation in a personal program.

What do you learn?

The training covers the seven proven pillars of a healthy and loving relationship, including:

✔ Really getting to know and understand each other (deepening love cards)

✔ Keeping admiration and appreciation alive

✔ Better handling of stress and conflict

✔ Communicating and listening more effectively

✔ Recurring problems better handled together

✔ Creating more connection and meaning in your relationship

For whom.

For couples who want to invest in their relationship, whether you just got together or have been sharing for years. This training is also suitable if you are stuck or experiencing tension.

Result?

More peace, understanding and connection, with ultimately room again for trust, fun and lightness together. This program is especially suitable for couples who are generally satisfied with their relationship, are interested in relationship growth and relationship deepening, and where there is no underlying trauma.

I speak good Dutch and English. English comes easily to me because my partner and I lived in London for two years. I was born in Sweden and I have a Swedish mother. Because of this, I can speak a little Swedish.

Spiegelogy cannot go unnamed, because these practice evenings (since 2004) have certainly positively influenced my life. Willem de Ridder (died in 2022) practiced the philosophy that the world, the reality how you experience it, is influenced by how you describe it, by what you think and feel. There are places throughout the Netherlands where there are so-called fan clubs, where people encourage each other and practice ‘ordering’, saying out loud what you do want and being encouraged in this. I have regularly attended these (free) meetings and also led these evenings as a group leader. For those who want to, I advise you to join the Facebook group ‘Spiegelogie’, where Fan Club meetings are regularly announced. Everyone is a ‘fan’ of each other. For those who find this a bit ‘different’ I have the following question: How many times in a day do you criticize yourself or others? How often do you encourage yourself or another person when they want something different from you or when things don’t go right all at once? What is your criticism/encouragement ratio, for example, in your love relationship? Is that top notch? Or could it be better? This ‘happens’ to be one of the biggest predictors of divorce: the degree to which you as a couple approach each other positively or negatively on a daily basis according to The Gottman Institute….

From 2012 to 2020, I taught at several universities in the Netherlands and in England (London) as a Lecturer in Gynecological Examination. Instructors of Gynecological Examination teach medical students, physician assistants and doctors going on refresher courses how to do gynecological examinations properly. In doing so, a lecturer gives attention to practice as well as communication and manners. I think this is important to mention in this context because this profession is tangential to the awareness that genitals and the perception and experience of genitals, is often unfortunately – unnecessarily – laden with negative judgments. How we judge and value our bodies and genitals affects our intimacy life, which in turn affects our love relationship(s)….