Proactive therapy & coaching with Serge Prengel

It takes a sense of comfort and safety to explore unresolved challenges, to get in touch with difficult feelings, and to find the motivation and inner strength that foster lasting change. 
My goal is to create the kind of atmosphere that makes this possible. I am emotionally present with you. Both you and I are actively involved in the creative process of making change happen.
Even dealing with difficult situations can come to feel like a very satisfying process when it is done with emotional honesty and creativity.


Countless cartoons perpetuate the stereotype of a therapist taking notes while the client is sitting, or lying on the couch, lost in thoughts about the past. But psychotherapy should not be a way to escape reality, or to hide in the past. In fact, when psychoanalysis started, it was perceived as revolutionary and disturbing. And psychotherapy still has the potential to be disruptive. I mean this in a good way: We want to face things that are difficult to face, in order to disrupt old, dysfunctional patterns.

We want to make the invisible patterns visible, so that we can change what is not working. The purpose of this work is to reveal to you with startling immediacy the inner dynamics that are hidden from your awareness… to give you the kind of gut-level understanding that leads you to change… to release the energy that is needed to profoundly transform your life. 

This is a process that engages your emotions and your creative side. The work we do is experiential. It’s not about rehashing the same things over and over again, it’s about finding a way to “get it” at a deeper level, so that you can make the changes you need. As the saying goes: “You cannot teach people anything; you can only help them to find it for themselves.”

We do not dwell on the past as a way to avoid present problems, nor do we ignore the past as if it didn’t affect your life. Your “baggage” very much affects your present reality. This is why we can actually deal with the effects of the past while exploring what you’re doing (or not doing) in the present. The liberating effect of this work is to disentangle the crossed strands of past “baggage” and present reality… so that you can live more fully in the present.

Change happens in the present moment. Proactive Change is about experiencing, in the present moment, the ways in which the past affects the present moment. It is about using this awareness to free yourself from the negative effects of the past, to live more fully in the present, and to plan more effectively for the future.


See Frequently Asked Questions.