Synergetik therapy

1. Introduction

Version followed: Bernd Joschko's Synergetik-Therapie (with its offshoot Synergetik-Profiling) as practised in Germany c. 2004–2010. The method is described here as its practitioners presented it, in the form summarised by the German Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG 3 C 28.09, 26 Aug 2010) and the German Wikipedia article (read via the bionity mirror). The school's own texts are not drawn on here: the Synergetik Institut journal Innenweltreisen, its training materials and its websites [uncertain]. The court also mentions a later “new” Synergetik-Therapie, said to exclude the treatment of illness, but no source describes it [uncertain].

How to read this tab. It records the method so that a psychotherapist can recognise it in a client's history or current care and respond. It is not a recommendation to practise it. No clinical studies of its effectiveness exist [source: bionity/Wikipedia]. German courts ruled that offering it is the practice of medicine and needs a licence (VG Braunschweig 2006; OVG Lüneburg 18 Jun 2009; BVerwG 26 Aug 2010). A lay practitioner was later convicted under the Heilpraktiker Act (BGH 2 StR 580/10, 22 Jun 2011) [source: BVerwG; otto-schmidt]. Everything below about mechanisms and effects is the school's claim, never established fact.

What it is. Synergetik-Therapie is an imagery-led trance method. The client lies blindfolded in deep relaxation and is guided on an “Innenweltreise” (inner-world journey). There the client describes inner images, talks with inner figures and confronts them. Sometimes the client strikes at inner images with a plastic baton [source: BVerwG 3 C 28.09]. Its body elements are limited: lying blindfolded, deep relaxation, emotional discharge (crying, shouting) and cathartic striking. Its listing under body-oriented psychotherapy reflects those elements; at its core it is a guided-imagery and abreaction method [synthesis].

Who made it. Founder Bernd Joschko is a physics engineer who formerly worked for the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office). From 1975 he adapted ideas of self-organisation and pattern recognition into a concept he called “Psychobionik”. Since the 1980s he has run a Synergetik Institut with therapy and training courses at his home in Hesse [source: bionity; BVerwG]. He says he carried police dragnet-search (Rasterfahndung) methods over into “Synergetik-Profiling” [source: BVerwG]. Two lay professions resulted: Synergetik-Therapeut and Synergetik-Profiler [source: bionity].

Core idea of change (school's claim). Mental and physical illnesses are said to rest on stored patterns of inner images, which Joschko calls an “Energiebildstruktur” or neural “information structure”. Finding these patterns in deep relaxation, then confronting and reshaping them, is said to trigger a self-organised “Strukturkippung” (structural tipping) that mobilises self-healing [source: bionity; BVerwG]. Joschko borrows the vocabulary of physicist Hermann Haken's synergetics. Professional circles do not recognise that link, and the article classes his energy and morphogenetic-field concepts as esoteric [source: bionity].

Not to be confused with [synthesis]:

• the academic synergetic psychotherapy research of Haken and Schiepek, which is process research and has nothing to do with Joschko;
• Synergetic Play Therapy, an unrelated US child-therapy model.

2. Framework

Format. One-to-one sessions in a practice or institute. In 2004 Joschko and a co-practitioner opened an “Informationscenter für ganzheitliche Therapie” in Goslar offering Synergetik-Therapie and -Profiling. In the BGH case a lay practitioner ran sessions in her own flat [source: BVerwG; otto-schmidt]. Clients were recruited by website and flyers aimed at people with anxiety, depression, trauma and other problems [source: otto-schmidt].

Who came. By the practitioners' own figures, 17% of their clients were physically ill and 26% mentally ill [source: BVerwG]. The method was offered for “nahezu allen seelischen und körperlichen Krankheiten” (nearly all mental and physical illnesses), including cancer [source: BVerwG]. Practitioners also addressed people with AIDS and multiple sclerosis [source: bionity].

Phases of a single session, as reconstructed from the court's and encyclopaedia's descriptions. The sources do not number or name the phases; they are ordered here for clarity [synthesis].

1. Setting. The client lies on a padded mat with eyes blindfolded. Goal: shut out external input [source: BVerwG; bionity].
2. Induction. Meditative music, texts read aloud, counting backwards and the suggestion of descending stairs. Goal: “Tiefenentspannung” (deep relaxation), which a court elsewhere described as a hypnoid state of reduced consciousness [source: BVerwG; otto-schmidt].
3. Entry into the inner world. The client goes down a staircase and through a door into a room [source: bionity].
4. Free associative search. The client describes whatever appears and talks with the images (“freilaufender synergetischer Suchprozess”). The therapist accompanies and makes suggestions [source: bionity].
5. Confrontation and reshaping. The client confronts figures such as the “inner parents”, often with emotional discharge. The therapist adds sounds for dramatic effect, and the client may strike at images with a plastic baton. Goal: reshape unprocessed experiences (“Aufräumen in der Innenwelt”) [source: BVerwG; bionity].
6. Claimed structural tipping. A change in the image pattern, said to set off self-healing [source: bionity].
7. Return and talking through. Conflicts and memories are discussed with the therapist [source: bionity]. In the BGH case there was usually no follow-up discussion at all [source: otto-schmidt].

Moving between phases. No explicit criteria appear in the sources [uncertain]. By inference, the session moves on when images appear and change, and when emotional release occurs [synthesis].

Session length and count. Not found [uncertain]. A case series the school called a “Brustkrebsstudie” (breast cancer study) reported several sessions per client, with ultrasound images said to show breast lumps disappearing. Ärzteblatt reported this but did not say whether the claim was medically checked [source: Ärzteblatt 50/2010].

Two kinds of course [source: bionity]:

• Themed or problem-led work. Profiling for illness-related patterns.
• Unthemed inner journeys. Offered for self-experience and “unspecific” self-healing.

Training and regulation.

• Practitioners trained at the institute; in 2010 courses cost €2,800 for 14 days and €5,600 for 28 days [source: Ärzte Zeitung 2010]. No medical or psychotherapeutic qualification was required [source: BVerwG].
• Since the rulings, practice in Germany requires a medical, psychotherapist or Heilpraktiker licence [source: BVerwG; bionity].
• Switzerland is said to assess the method differently; this was not verified [uncertain].

Screening. Practitioners could not distinguish healthy from ill clients [source: BVerwG]. In the BGH case the practitioner made no attempt to clarify contraindications [source: otto-schmidt].

3. Guiding principles

These are the school's own premises, attributed to it, each followed by its practical meaning in Synergetik practice ("→").

• Self-organisation and self-healing. Joschko holds that the psyche organises itself and that healing comes from within once the pattern “tips” [source: bionity]. → The therapist triggers a tipping point rather than teaching skills or treating directly.
• Every illness has an inner-image background. Practitioners claim to dissolve the “Krankheitshintergrund” (the background of the illness), whereas medicine only fights symptoms [source: BVerwG]. → Any complaint, physical disease included, is searched for in imagery.
• The client leads; the therapist sets no content. Clients are awake and self-directed. Wikipedia notes a loose resemblance to Ericksonian hypnotherapy [source: bionity]. → The therapist follows and amplifies whatever images appear.
• Confront rather than soothe. Unprocessed experience is reshaped by inner confrontation; crying, shouting and “draufhauen” (hitting out) are welcomed [source: BVerwG]. → Emotional discharge is treated as progress.
• Change the inner image, change the outer condition. → A changed image is read as evidence of healing, including bodily healing [source: bionity; Ärzteblatt].
• The inner world is very broad. Joschko's “Neurowelt” includes childhood memories, symbol and “reincarnation” images, images from a “Kollektivpool” and Sheldrake-style morphogenetic fields [source: bionity]. → Any image may be taken as meaningful and causal, including images of past lives.
• A “fourth force” beside doctors, Heilpraktiker and psychotherapists. The method places itself at the top of a healing hierarchy, with conventional medicine at the bottom as mere symptom suppression [source: BVerwG; Ärzteblatt]. → Clients were advised to change doctors if a doctor did not accept self-healing [source: BVerwG].
• Formal disclaimers. Client leaflets and ethics rules said it was not medical treatment and that seriously ill people should see a doctor. The court called this a mere “Absicherungsvermerk” (a protective note for the record) that did not change the superiority claim [source: BVerwG; otto-schmidt]. → Disclaimers coexisted with healing claims.
• Lay practice. → Practitioners were trained only in the method itself, without the skills to recognise contraindications or manage decompensation [source: otto-schmidt].

4. Intervention inventory

This section lists every component the sources name, so that a clinician can recognise each one when a client describes it.

How to read the entries.

• Purpose gives the school's stated rationale.
• Steps follow the sources; details they do not give are marked [uncertain].
• Example language is my own illustrative reconstruction of the style, so you can recognise it. It is not wording from Joschko's materials, and it is not offered for use.
• Watch for covers the risks a clinician should look for, plus how the school itself judged that a component was working.

Touch. No source describes therapist touch in Synergetik [uncertain]. If a client reports touch, treat it as outside anything documented and explore it carefully.

Using elements in licensed practice. Relaxation and imagery elements resemble techniques in established therapies. A licensed clinician who uses imagery should do so inside an evidence-based model (see 5 and the Harm account), never as a disease treatment [synthesis].

4.1 Blindfolded lying setting

• Purpose: Shut out outside stimuli so the client turns fully to inner images [source: BVerwG; bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The client lies on their back on a padded mat or couch.
  2. The eyes are covered with a blindfold.
  3. The therapist sits nearby to accompany the client and operate the music and sound sources.
  4. The room set-up and the therapist's exact position are not described [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “Lie down and get comfortable; I'll put the eye cover on now, and from here you just let the pictures come.”
• Watch for:
  • A blindfold plus lying down plus reduced consciousness raises dependency on the practitioner. It removes the client's visual check on the room and makes leaving harder.
  • Ask any client who describes this setting whether they felt free to stop or remove the blindfold [synthesis].
  • Clients with trauma histories involving restraint or darkness may find it threatening [synthesis].

4.2 Deep-relaxation induction

• Purpose: Bring the client into “Tiefenentspannung” (deep relaxation), in which pathogenic image patterns are said to become accessible [source: BVerwG].
• Steps:
  1. Meditative music is played; earlier accounts mention a tape [source: bionity].
  2. The therapist reads texts aloud.
  3. The therapist counts backwards.
  4. The therapist suggests the client is going down a staircase step by step [source: BVerwG].
  5. Duration and the texts used are not given [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “With every number I count down, you sink a little deeper… ten… nine…”
• Watch for:
  • The BGH described the resulting state as hypnoid, a reduced state of consciousness [source: otto-schmidt]. Suggestibility rises in this state, which matters for 4.4–4.7 [synthesis].
  • The school treats deep relaxation itself as the doorway. A client may report it as the most “real” part of treatment.

4.3 Descent and entry into the inner room

• Purpose: Mark the transition into the “Innenwelt” or “Neurowelt”, where the work takes place [source: bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The client imagines descending a staircase.
  2. At the bottom the client finds a door.
  3. The client opens it and enters a room.
  4. The client reports what is there [source: bionity].
  5. Whether the rooms are themed, for example by problem, is not described [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “There's a door in front of you now… open it and tell me what you see.”
• Watch for: Clients may later use spatial terms (“my rooms”, “the corridor”) to explain their symptoms. That is a recognition cue.

4.4 Free-running associative search (“freilaufender synergetischer Suchprozess”)

• Purpose: Let the client's own images surface and lead to supposedly pathogenic patterns without therapist-set content [source: bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The client describes, aloud and in the present tense, whatever images, people, places or bodily feelings appear.
  2. The therapist follows, asks what happens next, and suggests the client look closer or go further [source: bionity].
  3. Conflicts and memories that surface are noted for working through [source: bionity].
• Example language (illustrative): “What is happening now? … Go closer. Who is standing there?”
• Watch for:
  • The sources say images may include childhood memories, “reincarnation” images and images from a “collective pool” [source: bionity].
  • Combined with deep relaxation and a therapist's expectant questions, this is a setting in which vivid imagery can be taken as memory of real events. See the Harm account [synthesis].

4.5 Dialogue with inner figures and provoking figures (e.g. “inner parents”)

• Purpose: Make the conflict explicit by speaking with or to figures in the image, often parental figures [source: bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The therapist suggests calling up a figure, for example the inner mother or father.
  2. The therapist provokes the figure, so that it reacts and the conflict sharpens [source: bionity].
  3. The client speaks to the figure aloud and reports its answers.
  4. Details of the provocation are not given [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “Bring your father into the room… tell him what you never said. What does he answer?”
• Watch for:
  • Dialogue structures resemble the empty-chair and imagery-rescripting work of legitimate therapies. Here, though, they are done in a hypnoid state, without screening or a stabilisation phase, and with the aim of curing disease [synthesis].
  • Ask whether the client came away with new “knowledge” about a parent, such as abuse, that they did not hold before. See 5 and the Harm account.

4.6 Symbolic and power images (e.g. the “inner lion”)

• Purpose: Bring in symbolic figures that represent strength or a hidden pattern [source: bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The therapist invites or provokes a symbolic image; the source's example is an inner lion.
  2. The client interacts with it.
  3. How the symbol is chosen and used is not described [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “Let an animal come that has the strength you need… what does it do?”
• Watch for: Symbolic content is read as causal and diagnostic, not as metaphor [source: bionity]. A client may report that an animal or symbol “showed” the cause of their illness.

4.7 Inner confrontation and reshaping (“Aufräumen in der Innenwelt”)

• Purpose: Re-shape unprocessed experiences and conflicts by confronting them inside the image. This is said to produce the “Strukturkippung” (structural tipping) that releases self-healing [source: BVerwG; bionity].
• Steps:
  1. Once a conflict figure or scene is found, the client faces it rather than avoiding it.
  2. The client expresses feelings aloud (crying, shouting, feeling, hitting out) [source: BVerwG].
  3. The client then changes the scene inside the image, for example by standing up to the figure or ending the threatening situation.
  4. The work continues until the image is felt to have changed [source: BVerwG; bionity].
  5. Any specific sequence or end criterion is not given [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “Don't look away—look at it… what do you want to do with it now?”
• Watch for:
  • This is unscreened exposure and abreaction in a hypnoid state. The BGH noted clients were confronted with distressing memories, usually without follow-up discussion [source: otto-schmidt].
  • Expert opinions cited by the BVerwG held the therapy contraindicated in psychosis and borderline conditions [source: BVerwG].
  • In a client, look for after-effects: intrusions, dissociation, sleep disturbance, self-harm urges, new “memories” [synthesis].
  • The school's marker of success was a changed image and strong release. Neither is evidence of symptom change, let alone of physical healing [synthesis].

4.8 Sound and music effects for dramaturgy

• Purpose: Heighten the drama of inner scenes [source: BVerwG].
• Steps:
  1. While the client works in the image, the therapist plays noises and sounds that match or intensify the scene.
  2. The kinds of sounds are not specified [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): No wording; this is non-verbal.
• Watch for: Sudden sounds while the client is blindfolded and in a hypnoid state can startle and escalate fear. Clients with PTSD are especially at risk [synthesis].

4.9 Striking inner images with a plastic baton

• Purpose: Physical discharge against a figure or image, “auf innere Bilder einzuschlagen” (to strike at inner images) [source: BVerwG].
• Steps:
  1. The client is given a plastic baton (“Schlagstock”).
  2. The client hits out at the place where the inner image is felt to be, alongside shouting or crying [source: BVerwG].
  3. The surface struck, the starting position (presumably still lying, perhaps sitting up), and the number or duration of blows are not described [uncertain].
  4. No source describes therapist touch here.
• Example language (illustrative): “There it is—let it out; hit it.”
• Contraindications and screening: The sources name only the general contraindications for the whole method: psychosis and borderline conditions [source: BVerwG]. Anyone assessing a client after cathartic hitting, or adapting a discharge exercise in licensed practice, should also screen for the following [synthesis]:
  • cardiovascular or respiratory illness;
  • recent injury or surgery;
  • pregnancy;
  • epilepsy;
  • severe dissociation;
  • active suicidality or self-harm;
  • unstabilised PTSD or recent trauma;
  • a history of violence or impulsive aggression;
  • intoxication.
• Watch for:
  • Cathartic venting tends to heighten arousal rather than resolve anger [synthesis, general clinical knowledge, not from these sources].
  • Hitting while blindfolded risks hand and wrist injury.
  • Escalating shouting can tip into panic or dissociation.

4.10 Return and talking through

• Purpose: Discuss the conflicts and memories that came up and identify the supposed pathogenic “information structures” [source: bionity].
• Steps:
  1. The client is brought back from the relaxation. The method of reorientation is not described [uncertain].
  2. The client and therapist discuss what appeared and what it is taken to mean.
• Example language (illustrative): “What came up today shows where the pattern sits.”
• Watch for:
  • In the BGH case this step was usually skipped [source: otto-schmidt].
  • When it does happen, images may be framed as causes of disease. That can leave the client with self-blame (“my unresolved conflict made my cancer”) [synthesis].

4.11 Synergetik-Profiling

• Purpose: Find the image patterns said to cause a specific illness, using Haken's pattern-recognition laws in a free associative search. Joschko links this to his former police dragnet-search work [source: bionity; BVerwG].
• Steps: The sources describe Profiling as a themed version of the free associative search in 4.4, aimed at an illness. Its concrete procedure, and whether it differs in setting from therapy sessions, was not found [uncertain].
• Example language (illustrative): “Let's go looking for what is behind the illness.”
• Watch for:
  • This is the component most directly tied to physical-disease claims, including the “breast cancer study” [source: Ärzteblatt].
  • The BVerwG included Profiling in the licensing requirement [source: BVerwG].

4.12 Unthemed inner journeys (self-experience)

• Purpose: Free journeys without a set theme, claimed to give self-experience, greater “life competence” and unspecific self-healing [source: bionity].
• Steps: The same as 4.1–4.10, without a target problem.
• Example language (illustrative): “Today there's no topic; just go and see what your inner world shows you.”
• Watch for:
  • Marketing to healthy people does not remove the risks. The courts found practitioners could not tell healthy from ill clients [source: BVerwG].
  • The later “new” Synergetik framed as excluding the treatment of illness may present like this [uncertain].

5. Handling problems

No source describes how Synergetik practitioners handle problems. The only source-based points are these:

• The method is contraindicated in psychosis and borderline conditions [source: BVerwG].
• Client leaflets advised seriously ill people to see a doctor [source: otto-schmidt].

Everything else in this section is my own clinical synthesis for a psychotherapist whose client uses, used, or asks about the method [synthesis].

1. The client is currently in Synergetik sessions alongside your therapy [synthesis]

• Ask neutrally what happens in sessions: blindfold, relaxation, journeys, figures, the baton, follow-up talk, costs, and what the practitioner says about illness and doctors.
• Check whether the practitioner is licensed. In Germany that means a physician, a psychotherapist or a Heilpraktiker.
• Name your concerns plainly and without contempt: there is no evidence base; it is contraindicated in some conditions; it can unsettle people; and it can lead people away from medical care.
• Agree on what you will watch for together: sleep, intrusions, dissociation, mood, suicidal thoughts, new “memories”.

2. A seriously ill client delays or refuses medical treatment (cancer, MS, HIV, other) [synthesis]

• Treat this as the priority.
• Explore without arguing what the method offers them: control, hope, meaning, fear of side effects, distrust of doctors. A motivational-interviewing stance works better than debate.
• With consent, contact the treating physician or oncology team, and offer psycho-oncology.
• Separate the two questions: “You can keep exploring your inner life with me and have the medical treatment.”
• Assess decision-making capacity if the refusal seems driven by fear or by fixed beliefs.
• Never endorse imagery as a disease treatment.

3. Destabilisation after a session (panic, dissociation, intrusions, psychotic symptoms, self-harm urges) [synthesis]

• Assess current risk using your standard suicide and self-harm assessment and a safety plan.
• Stabilise first: grounding, orientation to the here and now, sleep, reducing arousal.
• Advise pausing further sessions.
• Refer for psychiatric assessment if there are psychotic features. Note that the courts' cited experts named psychosis and borderline conditions as contraindications [source: BVerwG].
• Postpone any trauma processing until the client is stable.

4. New “memories” or causal beliefs from inner journeys (abuse, past lives, “the cause of my illness”) [synthesis]

• Take a neutral, non-suggestive stance: neither confirm nor dismiss.
• Explain how imagery under deep relaxation and expectant questioning can create vivid, convincing pictures that are not records of events.
• Work with the distress and with present-day functioning.
• Avoid further imagery or hypnosis aimed at “checking” the memory.
• If the client plans confrontation or legal steps based on such material, slow down and explore consequences. Document carefully.

5. Guilt and self-blame for illness [synthesis]

• Some clients believe an unresolved conflict caused their illness, or that relapse means they “didn't clear it”. Name this belief.
• Offer accurate, compassionate information about the multifactorial causes of disease.
• Work on the shame directly, for example with compassion-focused or cognitive work.

6. Rupture: the client hears your scepticism as dismissal [synthesis]

• Acknowledge what was valuable to them: being listened to for long stretches, emotional release, feeling in charge of healing.
• Separate these needs from the method's claims.
• Repair openly: “I may have sounded as if I was brushing off something important to you—that wasn't my intent.” (illustrative)

7. The client is a practitioner or trainee, or has invested heavily (training cost up to €5,600 in 2010 [source: Ärzte Zeitung]) [synthesis]

• Expect identity investment and sunk-cost reasoning.
• Explore without humiliation.
• If they practise on others without a licence, discuss the legal position (see Harm account).

8. The client asks you to do Synergetik, or for a referral [synthesis]

• Decline and explain why.
• Offer evidence-based options that meet the same wish. For working with images or the past, these include imagery rescripting, schema therapy, EMDR or trauma-focused CBT after stabilisation. For relaxation, offer standard relaxation training.

9. Distrust of medicine, conspiratorial or antisemitic content [synthesis]

• Joschko's websites promoted Hamer's “Germanische Neue Medizin” [source: bionity], which frames oncology in antisemitic conspiracy terms [source: EZW].
• Explore where the client met these ideas. Do not debate the content point by point.
• Watch for social isolation within an alternative-health milieu.

10. If you use imagery yourself in licensed practice, avoid the method's hazards [synthesis]

• No blindfold.
• Eyes-open option and an agreed stop signal.
• Screen beforehand: psychosis, dissociation, suicidality, unstabilised trauma.
• No provocation of figures.
• No suggestions about hidden causes.
• No hitting or venting exercises.
• Always reorient and debrief.
• Never imply effects on physical disease.
• Work within your training, supervision, licence and jurisdiction.

Harm account

What was actually done

Joschko's institute.

• Since the 1980s Joschko has run a Synergetik institute at his home in Hesse, offering therapy and training [source: BVerwG].
• The method claimed to work against nearly all mental and physical illnesses, including cancer and conditions regarded as incurable [source: BVerwG; rechtslupe].
• It presented itself as a “vierte Kraft” (fourth force) above conventional medicine, which it cast as mere symptom suppression [source: BVerwG; Ärzteblatt].
• Clients were advised to change doctors if a doctor did not support self-healing [source: BVerwG].
• Practitioners also addressed people with AIDS and MS [source: bionity].
• The school published a “breast cancer study” of cases treated with Synergetik, with ultrasound images said to show lumps disappearing after several sessions [source: Ärzteblatt].
• Joschko's websites promoted Hamer's “Germanische Neue Medizin”. Joschko distanced himself from Hamer's antisemitic statements. Followers said inner-world images often matched the triggers Hamer's theory describes [source: bionity].

Goslar, 2004.

• Early in 2004 Joschko and a co-practitioner opened an “Informationscenter für ganzheitliche Therapie” offering Synergetik-Therapie and -Profiling, marketed as journeys into the “Neurowelt” [source: BVerwG; Ärzte Zeitung].
• On 8 January 2004 the local authority prohibited the independent practice of both, under threat of coercive fines [source: BVerwG].

What clients experienced [source: BVerwG; bionity]:

• They lay blindfolded on a mat while meditative music played, texts were read, the practitioner counted backwards and suggested a descending staircase.
• They were guided through an inner door and asked to describe and talk to images.
• Figures such as the inner parents were provoked.
• Sound effects were added for dramatic effect.
• They were encouraged to cry, shout and strike at images with a plastic baton.

The BGH criminal case (Landgericht judgment, BGH 2 StR 580/10, 22 June 2011) [source: otto-schmidt]:

• An unlicensed practitioner ran sessions in her flat, advertising to people with anxiety, depression and trauma.
• Clients entered a hypnoid state of reduced consciousness, described memory images and feelings, and were sometimes confronted with distressing memories.
• There was usually no follow-up discussion.
• She did not screen for contraindications.
• She told clients the method was not a recognised treatment and advised seriously ill people to see a doctor.

Court sequence.

• VG Braunschweig dismissed the practitioners' suits on 23 November 2006 (5 A 133/04, 5 A 102/04). One secondary source gives 24 November [uncertain].
• OVG Lüneburg dismissed the appeals on 18 June 2009 (8 LC 9/07, 8 LC 6/07).
• BVerwG dismissed the final appeals on 26 August 2010 (3 C 28.09, 3 C 29.09). Its headnote: treatment by the Synergetik method is practice of medicine requiring a licence under the Heilpraktiker Act.
• BVerwG rejected a complaint about the right to be heard on 2 December 2010 [source: BVerwG].
• The BGH upheld the practitioner's conviction for unlicensed practice in eleven cases: 120 daily fines in total, with twenty other counts acquitted [source: otto-schmidt].
• After the BVerwG loss, Joschko's website reportedly presented the ruling as having confirmed Synergetik practitioners as “new healing professions” [source: Ärzte Zeitung].

How it caused harm

Delay or abandonment of medical treatment (indirect harm).

• The BVerwG's central finding: by presenting itself as a substitute for, and superior to, medical care, the method could keep people from a necessary doctor's visit.
• Disclaimers did not cancel this [source: BVerwG; LTO].
• The risk is greatest for people with cancer and other serious progressive illness, who were explicitly targeted [source: BVerwG].
• No documented death or injury specifically from Synergetik appears in the sources [uncertain].
• The allied Germanische Neue Medizin has well-documented deaths of cancer patients who abandoned treatment that offered a realistic chance [source: EZW]. That record concerns GNM, not Synergetik.

Direct psychological harm.

• Expert opinions accepted by the courts held the method contraindicated in psychosis and borderline conditions.
• Practitioners could not distinguish ill from healthy clients, even though 26% of clients were, by their own count, mentally ill [source: BVerwG].
• The BGH found that the method is generally capable of significantly harming health, citing unscreened contraindications and practitioners unable to recognise or manage decompensation. In the eleven convicted cases, no measurable damage was found [source: otto-schmidt].
• The plausible mechanisms are [synthesis]:
  • abreaction and confrontation with traumatic material in a hypnoid state, without stabilisation or debriefing;
  • blindfolding and sensory dramatisation that raise fear;
  • triggering of psychotic or dissociative states in vulnerable people.

Imagery-induced false beliefs [synthesis, from general memory and suggestion research; not documented for Synergetik in the sources]:

• Deep relaxation, guided imagery, expectant questioning and a framework that treats any image as causal are the conditions under which vivid imagery is mistaken for memory.
• The school's “Neurowelt” explicitly includes reincarnation and “collective” images [source: bionity].
• Clients may leave with confident beliefs about childhood events, past lives or the “cause” of their disease.
• These beliefs can damage family relationships, prompt accusations, and deepen distrust of medicine.

Framing conventional medicine as dangerous or inferior.

• Conventional medicine was cast as mere symptom suppression at the bottom of a healing hierarchy [source: Ärzteblatt].
• Clients were told to change doctors [source: BVerwG].
• GNM, which Joschko's sites promoted, rejects surgery, chemotherapy and radiation outright, and frames oncology in antisemitic conspiracy terms [source: bionity; EZW].

Who is most at risk [synthesis, partly source-based]:

• people with cancer or other serious physical illness;
• people with psychosis, borderline personality disorder, severe dissociation or unstabilised trauma;
• people in crisis;
• children whose parents choose the method for them.

Recognising it today

Words and phrases. “Synergetik”, “Innenweltreise” (inner-world journey), “Neurowelt”, “Selbstheilungskräfte”, “Krankheitshintergrund auflösen” (dissolving the background of an illness), “Strukturkippung”, “Informations-” or “Energiebildstruktur”, “Psychobionik”, “Synergetik-Profiling”, “vierte Kraft” [source: BVerwG; bionity; Ärzte Zeitung].

Rationales.

• Name-dropping of Hermann Haken, self-organisation, chaos theory, pattern recognition and bionics as if they proved the method; the suggested scientific link is not proven [source: bionity].
• Claims that changing inner images changes tumours.
• “Conflict shock” explanations of cancer, which come from GNM [source: EZW].

Rebrandings. A “new” Synergetik-Therapie said to exclude the treatment of illness, and a separate professional association; the court saw no legally relevant change [source: BVerwG]. Other current names were not verified [uncertain].

Red flags in a practitioner or service [synthesis]:

• blindfolded trance work;
• hitting images with a baton;
• no screening interview;
• no debriefing;
• treatment of physical disease through imagery;
• advice to change or avoid doctors;
• disclaimers combined with healing testimonials;
• unlicensed practice where a licence is required;
• expensive short trainings that certify lay people as therapists.

How legitimate methods differ [synthesis]:

• Evidence-based imagery work (imagery rescripting, guided imagery in psycho-oncology as a supportive adjunct, hypnotherapy by licensed clinicians) uses screening, informed consent, stabilisation and debriefing.
• It works with eyes-open options and client control.
• It treats images as mental events, not causes.
• It never replaces medical treatment.

What to do instead and how to help those harmed

Alternatives [synthesis]:

• For psychological problems: evidence-based treatments for the condition, such as CBT, trauma-focused CBT, EMDR, imagery rescripting, schema therapy or DBT for borderline conditions.
• For people with serious illness: medical treatment plus psycho-oncology or health-psychology support. Relaxation and imagery may be used as a supportive adjunct only.

Assessment of affected clients [synthesis]:

• current medical care and any delayed treatment;
• psychiatric status after sessions, including dissociation, psychotic symptoms and suicidality, using a standard risk assessment;
• new memory-based or causal beliefs;
• guilt about illness;
• financial loss;
• relationship fallout.

Treatment of affected clients. Stabilise first; take a neutral stance on recovered material; repair trust in medical care; and offer shame-focused work (see 5) [synthesis].

Ethical, reporting and legal duties [synthesis, except where sourced]:

• In Germany, practising this method without a licence is a criminal offence under § 5 HeilprG (BGH 2011) [source: otto-schmidt]. The local public health office (Gesundheitsamt) is the competent authority; the Goslar prohibition came from the local authority [source: BVerwG].
• Reporting a practitioner normally needs your client's consent, given your duty of confidentiality.
• If parents withhold necessary medical treatment from a child in favour of such methods, follow child-protection procedures. In Germany these include § 4 KKG and § 8a SGB VIII; use the equivalents elsewhere.
• If a licensed colleague offers it with disease claims, raise it with them, and if necessary with the professional chamber or licensing board.
• Do not refer to or co-treat with Synergetik practitioners.
• Outside Germany, check local rules [uncertain].

Sources

Sources

• BVerwG, Urteil vom 26.08.2010 – 3 C 28.09 (full judgment) (“BVerwG”). The fullest available account of the school's self-description, session procedure, clientele, lower-court history and dangers.
• Synergetik-Therapie – bionity.com Lexikon (mirror of German Wikipedia) (“bionity”). Founder, theory, session steps, Profiling, GNM link, criticism and literature list.
• Zur Erlaubnispflichtigkeit von Behandlungen nach der sog. Synergetik-Methode (BGH 2 StR 580/10) – Otto Schmidt (“otto-schmidt”).
• Reisen in die Neurowelt nur mit geprüftem Reiseführer – Ärzte Zeitung, 27.10.2010 (“Ärzte Zeitung”).
• Synergetik-Methode und Heilpraktikererlaubnis – Deutsches Ärzteblatt 50/2010 (Rechtsreport) (“Ärzteblatt”).
• BVerwG: Synergetik-Therapie ist erlaubnispflichtig – LTO (“LTO”).
• Behandlung nach der Synergetik-Methode – Rechtslupe (“rechtslupe”).
• Utsch: Germanische Neue Medizin – Materialdienst der EZW 9/2010, 355–358 (“EZW”).

Further reading (not drawn on)

• Full text of BGH 2 StR 580/10 on rewis.io and urteile-gesetze.de: not drawn on here.
• Honermann's Bamberg dissertation: it does not concern Joschko's method.
• German Wikipedia directly: not drawn on here.

Primary school sources [uncertain]

• Synergetik Institut (2004). Innenweltreisen, No. 4, special section on Psychobionik. ISSN 1617-9943.
• Stachowiak, M. Nehmen was da ist (case-story book). Synergetik Institut.
• The institute's websites and training materials.

Books cited by others (not drawn on)

• Haken, H. & Schiepek, G. (2006). Synergetik in der Psychologie. Selbstorganisation verstehen und gestalten. Göttingen: Hogrefe. This is academic synergetics and is unrelated to Joschko's method.
• Goldner, C. Die Psycho-Szene. Aschaffenburg: Alibri. A critical account.

Limits of this tab. The session description rests on court summaries of the practitioners' own statements and on an encyclopaedia entry, not on the founder's texts. Session length and number, phase criteria, the Profiling procedure and post-2010 practice remain [uncertain].