About me: Dr Daniel Köpke – Couples counsellor in Berlin

My biography

How I came to relationship work

My early fascination with relationships, my path through science and a personal crisis led me step by step towards the work that is now my life’s mission.

An early fascination with relationshipsWhy friends were already bringing their relationship questions to me

Even as a child and teenager, I was fascinated by relationships – though, of course, they were also a source of considerable frustration for me. Many times I was unhappily in love and had a hard time making friends. However, even then, friends and classmates would come to me with problems concerning love and relationships to hear my advice. It was a hidden talent that still seemed entirely natural to me at the time.

From pharmacy into researchSearching for the right mechanism of action – and for my own place

After leaving school, I initially decided to study pharmacy in Leipzig. Even then, I was fascinated by how different substances can alter states of consciousness and cure diseases – how something that is ill can be made “healthy” again by finding the “right” medicine.

During my practical year, however, I realised that the traditional career paths following a pharmacy degree did not resonate with me particularly well. I did not truly feel at home in a community pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry or a hospital. Research came closest. That is why I went on to complete a doctorate in pharmaceutical technology. Yet there, too, I increasingly felt that I had not arrived at the place where I truly belonged.

A relationship crisis as a turning pointHow a separation changed my perspective on psychology and change

Then, in 2017, a severe relationship crisis completely pulled the rug out from under me.

My partner at the time, with whom I had been together for seven years and with whom I had planned to stay for the rest of our lives, had decided to end our relationship.

After a depressive period that I had initially overcome only on the surface, I began searching for knowledge about how I might find a new partner to fill what felt like a hole in my heart. That was how I came across Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP: a tool that would change my life, my perspective on psychology and my understanding of relationships like almost nothing else.

The language of change

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

NLP helped me to regulate my emotions more effectively, work through fears and find clearer words for my feelings and needs. I became more sociable, more empathetic and more relaxed about approaching other people. Building relationships – friendships, professional relationships and romantic relationships alike – was suddenly no longer a problem for me.

Yet for me, this change was only the tip of the iceberg.

Over the years, NLP has become an extremely effective “meta-model” for me of how psychological change REALLY works.

Where NLP comes from and what fascinates me about itFrom Perls, Satir and Erickson to the question of what makes an intervention lastingly effective

Put simply, NLP is a collection of techniques and formats developed in the United States in the 1970s. Its founders set out to find a structure within the therapeutic chaos of techniques and methods that existed at the time. Behind this was a question that continues to fascinate me today: What distinguishes interventions with a lasting effect from quackery and charlatanism?

To explore this, NLP’s founders examined the common patterns in the work of leading therapists of the time – including Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy; Virginia Satir, a pioneer of family therapy; and Milton H. Erickson, one of the most influential figures in modern hypnotherapy. They focused particularly on how these people used language and communication to support effective and lasting positive change in their clients.

My training journey in NLPTraining, several years as an assistant and my teaching work today

This concept resonated so deeply with me that I began training in NLP in 2019. After completing every level of training with two different NLP trainers – Ralf Stumpf and Chris Mulzer – I assisted in their training programmes for several years. Today, as part of a collective of trainers at the Business Trends Academy, I teach parts of the NLP training myself and pass my knowledge and experience of NLP on to future generations.

NLP as the “language of change”

For me, NLP is the “language of change” – and wherever better communication, personal development or lasting behavioural change is desired, it is my absolute method of choice.

Why NLP is the “language of change” for meMy observations, the questions I use to evaluate methods and their practical translation into concrete interventions

In my observation, there is hardly a leadership seminar, dating course, teacher-training workshop, sales seminar or spiritual retreat today that does not use NLP techniques openly or covertly – consciously or unconsciously – to help its participants achieve the psychological change they are seeking: better connection with the people around them, overcoming fears and limiting beliefs, or building motivation for new, healthy behaviours and routines.

Wherever better communication, personal development, more effective learning or lasting behavioural change is desired, NLP is, for me, the absolute method of choice.

Methodologically speaking, NLP does not really add anything fundamentally new to the world. Instead, it has become, for me, a kind of descriptive language for what works psychologically. NLP is, for me, the “language of change”.

And that is precisely where I see its particular strength: NLP helps me turn an intriguing theory into a method that is practical and functional.

Whenever I engage with new coaching methods, relationship models or approaches to couples therapy, I therefore tend to ask the same questions:

What problem is this method trying to solve?
What assumptions and underlying beliefs about the world does it rest on?
For which people and situations is it helpful?
And how can we recognise in a person’s concrete experience that something has actually changed?
What kind of “world” must a person live in for this type of change work to produce meaningful and positive results?
How can I validate or falsify the success or failure of this intervention as objectively as possible in each specific case?

From this “meta-understanding”, I find that I can grasp techniques and tools far more quickly and understand them as a whole. At the same time, my background in NLP and other methods enables me to develop concrete exercises, advice and process guidance immediately and in the moment, so that I can support my clients directly in their relationship.

My toolkit of methods

Many perspectives – one shared framework

For me, NLP provides the overarching language through which I understand and connect different approaches and make them useful in each individual case.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Coaching techniques

NLP formats and anchoring techniques
Classical hypnosis
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
Systemic constellation work
Hypnosystemic work according to Gunter Schmidt

Couples therapy approaches

John Gottman
Michael Lukas Möller
David Schnarch
Esther Perel

Spirituality

Christianity / Buddhism
Energy work / Reiki
Shamanism
Mental transformation based on Dr Joe Dispenza

Personality typology

Psychography according to Dietmar Friedmann
Big Five / OCEAN model
Enneagram
DISC model
Human Design

Scientific methods

Attachment psychology
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)
Gottman Method
Systemic couples therapy

Sexuality

Tantra
BDSM
Open relationships + polyamory
Sexual psychology
Slow Sex

Individual rather than one-size-fits-all

My approach to couples coaching

This way of working and thinking can sometimes make it a little difficult to explain exactly how I work. After all, I do not “simply” practise NLP, systemic constellations, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy or the Gottman Method exactly as they might be taught from a textbook in the corresponding training programme.

For every couple and each individual partner, I develop an individual change technique tailored not only to the specific problem at hand, but also to their personal worldview, individual needs and unique personality.

Translating different worldviewsFrom figures and research to spirituality, trance and intercultural perspectives

Anyone who needs a solid, logical and evidence-based theoretical foundation before they can trust a method will receive figures, facts and research from me. And anyone who needs a spiritual, intercultural or esoteric perspective can also receive transcendental or hypnotic states, unconventional trances or Bible quotations that strengthen their trust in the process.

Such differences in worldview often collide within relationships and create conflict. Sometimes, it is enough simply to translate these different ways of seeing the world into a shared language. In this respect too, I see myself as a bridge-builder in many couples counselling sessions.

Why I never use the same intervention twiceA clear Zwiecoaching framework with individually developed interventions

No, I genuinely have never used one and the same intervention twice.

That is because I have never encountered the same combination of problem, personalities of the people in the relationship and specific relationship situation twice.

The framework and process of Zwiecoaching remain clearly structured. The specific content and interventions, however, always emerge from the individual case.

And I suspect that I would not encounter the same combination even if I were able to support millions more couples in their relationships over the course of my life. We human beings are simply far too different.

In my experience, taking these differences and personal needs into account in our work together has a far greater impact on the success or failure of couples counselling than rigidly adhering to a supposedly “right” or “wrong” method.

The “issue behind the issue”Why the visible conflict is often only the surface of a relationship dynamic

Whether a specific relationship problem concerns a lack of appreciation, deadlocks over major shared decisions, difficulties with sexuality or insufficient support matters far less than couples commonly believe. Likewise, it often matters less than one might think whether the subject is having children, where to live, one partner’s spending habits or the question of opening up the relationship sexually.

My experience is that there is, fundamentally, ALWAYS an “issue behind the issue”: an unconscious issue that neither partner can see because of their conditioning, ego, unmet needs or other understandable reasons. For precisely that reason, resolving it on their own without a neutral outside perspective that is equally attentive to both partners is extremely difficult. And this is exactly where I am very happy to support you.

Background & experience

What I bring to my work

Scientific thinking, extensive experience in change work and years of practical experience come together in my couples counselling to form an individual, integrated approach.

Couples counsellor and coachsince 2019
More than 3,000 hours of trainingin NLP, hypnosis and other approaches to change
Certified NLP trainerIN & ICI
Training and assistant teachingwith Ralf Stumpf and Chris Mulzer
Teachingas part of the Business Trends Academy’s collective of trainers
Doctoratein pharmaceutical technology
Founder and hostof the Beziehungs-Mindset podcast

Let’s get to know each other

Is my approach a good fit for your situation?

In a free, no-obligation discovery call, we will look together at what is really going on for you and which next step makes sense.

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About me –Dr Daniel Köpke