"The cause of chronic illnesses and symptoms can always be found in the first three years of life from conception. My method aims to identify these so-called micro-traumatizations and prenatal conditionings using specific questioning techniques, to emotionally reframe them, and thereby render them harmless. Essentially, my work is that of a knowledge mediator, presenting connections to the client and helping them to critically question beliefs and draw new conclusions from past experiences. Depending on the problem, often no further curative measure is necessary." The successful coach and author Andreas Winter, who now presents his standard work "How our Psyche Ticks," aims to show in an understandable way how, through simply becoming aware of the actual causes and conveying the intelligent logic of a symptom, one can resolve complaints, illnesses, and behavioral problems in an instant – to help oneself or others.

With "How our Psyche Ticks," you are now presenting your standard or foundational work. What can we expect from this new book, and is the "Andreas Winter Method" now complete?

Andreas Winter: In this book, I get straight to the essence of over three decades of coaching practice. Over the years, it became increasingly clear that the cause of chronic illnesses can always be found in the first three years of life from conception. No matter what a person struggles with long-term – it has to do with perception patterns that emerged at a time when the person still felt largely powerless and also had no rational sense of time. My method for uncovering and changing these causes aims to show that the causes are so-called micro-traumatizations and prenatal conditionings, which can be uncovered with specific questioning techniques and then emotionally reframed and rendered harmless using the means of reframing. Completely without further aids. It will be complete when it manages to have a life-changing influence on a person with the same speed, relevance, and depth of impression as the original perpetrator who caused the traumatization. There is certainly still much to research and develop, and I can imagine that one day techniques like virtual reality and artificial intelligence could be used to significantly increase the emotional depth of therapy.

You promise not only interested laypeople but also therapists an effective tool with which they can treat any unwanted behavior. What do you understand by these blockades and disorders, and how is your approach currently being received by the "community of healers"?

Winter: By blockades and disorders, I understand any behavior and feeling that causes suffering in a person in some form. My training courses have always been attended by healthcare professionals who incorporate my approach into their work as a supplement. However, I must add that my work is not about healing or therapy at all; in that respect, there has never been a conflicting point of contact with the work of a healer. I merely provide the basis for effective therapy. My perspective explains why a person has become ill, why they remain ill despite healing attempts, and what needs to be considered to help them. Essentially, my work is that of a knowledge mediator, presenting connections to the client and helping them to critically question beliefs and draw new conclusions from past experiences. Depending on the problem, often no further curative measure is necessary if the affected organism is still capable of self-healing.

Based on your many years of coaching practice with over 5,000 clients, you claim that there is a specific formula that explains why people intentionally do what they do, even if it harms them and causes great suffering. What is this hidden algorithm, and how does it affect the lives of those affected?

Winter: In my view, we humans are very complex beings, but not particularly complicated. We are multi-layered, differentiated, and on a certain level very different, but we are not difficult to understand and all have the same aspiration, namely the resistance-free realization of our own personality. This means: We all want to be who we are, and not have any psychosocial stress doing so. More simply put: We want to live our lives and be loved. Now, precisely that is not always so easy in a civilized performance society; after all, we are raised to control our needs and, if necessary, hold them back. Moreover, disproportionate consumer desires are aroused and competition is artificially created. Hardly anyone feels "right" as a person with their needs and possibilities. Greed, envy, jealousy, mistrust, fear, and authoritarian dependence are unfortunately completely normal characteristics of a civilized person. If this subordination to societal standards becomes a permanent state, it can put some people under a lot of stress. Stress makes one vulnerable, inefficient, and consequently ill. When we then realize through symptoms that something is going wrong in life, we usually go to a therapist, who, however, doesn't always look at what exactly made us sick. Curative interventions then suppress the symptoms, the pathogenic pattern continues to work and produces the next symptoms.

You say many so-called illnesses or behavioral disorders have deep and old roots, reaching back to early childhood or even the time before birth. What triggered these, and why is it so difficult to trace them?

Winter: In the time before birth, we are connected to the mother's bloodstream via the umbilical cord. Consequently, we receive not only oxygen and nutrients from her but also all neurotransmitters. This means: what our mother feels, we feel too. And we cannot put it into perspective. We know nothing of a mother, although we hear her heartbeat and her voice. Moreover, during this time, we have no rational sense of time, so we perceive these impressions as lasting forever. As a result, what the mother feels is neurally connected much more richly in the unborn child than later; only from the age of three do we gain a concept of time, and impressions no longer appear to us as absolute. Such causes are not difficult to discover. Much more challenging, however, is the question of how to render such discovered causes harmless. It takes a certain amount of experience and expertise to help a person understand that they are no longer a helpless, immature child and that much of what they have believed so far is based on false assumptions.

Can you give an example?

Winter: Gladly. For example, many arachnophobes believe spiders are disgusting, unpredictable, and dangerous insects. Those affected can be shown that arachnophobia has nothing to do directly with the spider, but rather the animal merely symbolizes a loss of control suffered. The spider was thus linked to something else and today only functions as a trigger. It probably reminds them of someone whose stress-inducing presence they noticed too late. However, if the analysis ended here, false beliefs would still persist. If the affected person also understands that spiders are neither disgusting nor belong to the insect species, but are actually quite highly developed crustaceans that even practice brood care depending on the species, then the phobia transforms into acceptance. In such a case, not only would the fear of losing control be recognized as the cause and thus treatable, but also the revulsion towards spiders would be gone. But to reinterpret a lifelong disgust into empathy within minutes is admittedly quite challenging. Another example: Almost all obese people believe they must eat daily, which they learned as children. But they also think that they personally shouldn't, as they want to lose weight. So we have a conflict between the two beliefs. With discipline, weight loss can work for a while, but only as long as one can muster enough energy to "fight" the first statement (which represents clear resistance to parental views, as long as one does not allow oneself to critically question them). The fact is: If you don't eat for a few days, such as during therapeutic fasting, you don't experience any deficiency symptoms. And if too much food made you fat, we would all have to be severely obese, since in our culture almost everyone consumes much more than the human body needs. To convey the understanding that the body only builds up fat if you have too little of what you ate for – that is, to isolate the actual cause and the stress-triggering factors – requires expertise and persuasive power. Decoupling the feeling of appetite from an emotional deficiency is one thing, but making it clear to people that they can eat as before (but don't have to!) and still lose weight demands a lot from the therapist.

If we learn to recognize these causes, we can contribute greatly to our well-being and even alleviate or cure chronic diseases, you promise in your book. How can this learning process be initiated, and what conditions must be met for it?

Winter: We cannot avoid first establishing a different medical understanding. As long as doctors still answer the question of why a person became ill with "bad luck!", "That's just the way it is!", or "No idea!", we cannot expect the medical layman to think of looking for causes. Especially when it comes to our health, the scientific way of thinking, which underlies and examines true causal relationships, would be very beneficial to us. However, as a society, we would also have to abandon the concept of a permanent patient relationship, because this prevents "healing" by merely – very profitably – treating symptoms. Another aspect is that by labeling a patient "sick," medicine gives them a carte blanche, which on the one hand denies them the prospect of change and on the other hand offers them no particular incentive to break this pattern, because it frees them from responsibility for their condition. In the general understanding of "illness," many people feel disempowered, but also excused. Therefore, I believe that we urgently need to return to a healthy sense of responsibility, so as not to entrench a general victim mentality in society. No matter what we do or don't do, we are responsible for it. We are not responsible for others, but above all, no one else takes responsibility for us.

So-called psychosomatic disorders are now also recognized by conventional medicine, but they require a completely different therapeutic approach. What characterizes this approach, and is there not also a risk of misdiagnosis or a diagnosis of convenience?

Winter: Diagnoses of convenience exist, in my opinion, because conventional medicine doesn't really deal with psychosomatics – although it's not responsible for it either. The body and its physiological connections are, I believe, sufficiently researched – but not what controls it. When a doctor says: "You must avoid stress, I'm signing you off sick," that's unfortunately not a targeted approach against the source of stress, i.e., the cause of the illness. Of course, a break can initially bring some peace, during which the patient recovers. But does peace resolve the underlying pathogenic pattern? The first step towards an appropriate treatment of actually stress-related illnesses would be not to speak of illness in the diagnosis, but of an effect (symptom). Then one can ask the person: "What stresses you in everyday life and why?" This question is more demanding than it appears, as it leads to the cause of the harmful pattern. From there, one can then begin to neutralize this with appropriate techniques, and ensure that there are no more harmful effects, no more symptoms. This also means that the somatic diagnosis suddenly appears secondary and the causal diagnosis comes to the fore – and this is at a certain level the same for all people: fear of loss of control. Only at the individual level does it then become clear what a person defines as their control and its loss. In this respect, it is irrelevant, in my opinion, what medical diagnosis a person has. The fact is: they are chronically stressed, find no way out, and sabotage body functions that are symbolically related to the cause of stress. So, often one would only need to look: For what emotional reason did you become ill?

Would you describe your method as the therapy of the future?

Winter: No, quite the opposite! I believe that even ancient healers knew exactly that every illness and every disorder must have a cause. That this cause has nothing to do with sins, divine whims, or demons, but with early childhood traumatizations, is the only new thing to consider. That emotions can trigger stress and that stress hormones make one susceptible to illness and weaken the immune system is not new. That one has an influence on whether and how much something causes stress has been known since the 1940s. Doctors knew how best to exert an emotional influence on the patient over a hundred years ago. What influence to exert, where exactly to start, and what one can achieve with it, I have tried to present in my book in such a way that everyone can understand it – in the hope of bringing people a new lever for an old tool.

Book Tip:
Andreas Winter: How our Psyche Ticks. Understanding the Intelligence of the Subconscious. How psychosomatic symptoms and blockades arise and can be resolved. The Andreas Winter Method. Mankau Verlag, 1st ed. February 2024, softcover, 16.5 × 24 cm, 270 pages, 28.00 Euro (D) / 28.80 Euro (A), ISBN 978-3-86374-713-8

Audiobook Tip:
Andreas Winter: How our Psyche Ticks. Understanding the Intelligence of the Subconscious. How psychosomatic symptoms and blockades arise and can be resolved. The Andreas Winter Method. Mankau Verlag, 1st ed. February 2024, 1 MP3 CD in jewel case, total running time approx. 516 min., 8-page booklet, 18.00 Euro RRP (D/A), ISBN 978-3-86374-716-9

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