Your change begins here.

Prof. Dr. phil.Thomas Alexander Frank

Scientist. Therapist. Entrepreneur. And someone who has not only researched human development scientifically.

My professional work combines scientific psychology and education with therapeutic practice, management and a biography that showed me very early on that human development rarely follows a straight line.

I am a doctoral researcher in Educational Psychology and Rehabilitation Sciences, a qualified occupational therapist and Professor of Educational Psychology & Health Care Management. As a university lecturer I have taught at various universities and institutes, connecting scientific insight with clinical and practical experience.

I have been working with people for more than 31 years.

In psychotherapy and occupational therapy as well as with entrepreneurs, executives and people carrying particular responsibility. Today I support clients in Zurich, Berlin and online worldwide.

But my professional qualifications tell only part of my story.

My path began somewhere entirely different.

I grew up as an orphan, without parents, in children’s homes – without the security and affection of a family and without the many starting conditions that most people experience as a matter of course.

Ethnic exclusion, racism and social barriers were not something I first encountered in academic publications. I already knew from my own experience what they can do to a person before I began to understand their psychological and social mechanisms scientifically.

At the age of 14, with only a basic secondary school certificate, I started an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering and a working week of 45 hours.

There was no predetermined academic path. No one who planned a career for me or opened doors.

Out of financial necessity and at the same time with youthful curiosity about life, my path led me for several years to serve as a soldier in the army aviation corps of the German armed forces. There I became a helicopter technician in flight service, on the CH-53 heavy transport helicopter.

Alongside and afterwards I took on tasks that at first glance hardly fit together: a completed apprenticeship as a bookseller, two years of training as a hairdresser, welding qualifications, a truck driving licence including dangerous goods certification, and further technical and military training.

I often smile about the hairdressing chapter – yet I already learned a great deal about psychology there.

My CV was not designed at a desk. It came about by working, learning, making decisions, starting again and asking myself again and again:

What can I make of what lies in front of me right now – and what makes sense?

Step by step this path finally led to university – to studies, a diploma, a doctorate, research and teaching, to a professorship and into international entrepreneurial work.

Science alone is not enough.

I am not only interested in what is theoretically correct.

I am interested in what actually helps a person to change their thinking, their behaviour, their relationships, their performance and ultimately their life.

That is why I combine three perspectives that rarely come together in this way: scientific expertise, more than three decades of therapeutic and advisory practice, and the experience of an unusual life story of my own.

I know organisations and boardrooms just as well as workshops, clinics, universities and therapy rooms.

I have experienced performance from very different perspectives: as a worker and technician, as a therapist, scientist and lecturer, as an entrepreneur and adviser to people in positions of leadership.

Perhaps that is precisely the most important part of my qualification.

Because behind diagnoses, positions, academic titles and professional roles there is always a person with a story – and with possibilities that sometimes no one has recognised yet.

One conviction has therefore stayed with me to this day:

“Your starting point does not determine your outcome.”

Difficult starting conditions do not have to decide where a person ends up.

But change needs more than motivation. It needs knowledge, self-reflection, courage, sometimes an unusual perspective – and often a person who asks the right questions at the right moment.

This combination of scientific grounding and lived experience shapes my therapeutic work, my executive coaching, my keynotes and my work in research, training and teaching.

Anyone who gets to know me should therefore not only get to know my CV.

What interests me far more is your personal story – and the question of what next step is possible within it.

1995

Practice founded

1999

180° Model, Humboldt University of Berlin

30+

years of clinical practice

Sonja Weissmann

Occupational therapy assistance and professional lead

Artist. Meisterschülerin (master student) at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Prof. Peter Doig. Postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Alba von Vietinghoff

Occupational therapy assistance

Art therapist, educator, andragogue and systemic counselling.