15/07/2026
For more than twenty years, I've had the privilege of walking alongside families raising autistic and otherwise neurodivergent children. As a clinician, co-founder of Ausblick Therapie (formerly Teaching Tree), and as a mother of a ten-year-old, I've spent a long time listening.
At first, I listened for goals, challenges, and progress. Over the years, I began listening for something quieter: for the river beneath the river.
Again and again, I realized that many families weren't only carrying appointments, transitions, and endless logistics. They were carrying an invisible kind of vigilance. The longing wasn't only for good therapy. It was for somewhere they didn't have to explain their child. Somewhere where meals weren't another negotiation, schedules weren't another source of stress, and being surrounded by people who already understood wasn't something rare.
A few months ago, I experienced something myself that gave those years of listening a new shape. Thanks to my German health insurance, my daughter and I were able to attend a Mutter-Kind-Kur (Mother-Child Treatment). What stayed with me wasn't the treatment itself. It was the philosophy behind it: caring for caregivers is part of caring for children.
I came home more rested, more present with my daughter, and deeply grateful for having experienced that kind of care myself. It reminded me that when we support the nervous system of the parent, we often create more room for connection with the child. No one is trying harder, instead they don’t have to carry quite so much.
I found myself wondering how I might weave that experience into the work I already do with families: not by creating another program, but by creating a place intentionally designed around the realities of everyday parenting, where nothing has to be achieved before you can exhale.
That question slowly became Klaramühle, an old watermill nestled among forests, meadows, and streams near the Moselle River within easy reach of many U.S. military communities.
It isn't a clinic. It isn't another programme to complete. It is a simple, small place in nature, intentionally welcoming no more than four or five families at a time. A place where children can simply be themselves, parents don't have to stay "on duty" every minute, familiar food is welcome, nature sets the pace, and community is there if you want it (never because you have to).
I've had the privilege of helping children grow, learn, and discover new possibilities. That work remains deeply meaningful to me, and it continues every day at Ausblick Therapie. But somewhere along the way, I realized there is another kind of care that families sometimes need.
There is a time for growth, and there is a time for belonging. There is a time to learn new skills, and there is a time to lay the goals aside for a little while and simply be together. For two decades, I have been honoured to meet families in seasons of growth. With Klaramühle, I also want to meet them in seasons of rest. I don't want to meet families only through the question of how to improve tomorrow. I also want to meet them exactly where they are today. Not every meaningful moment has to move us forward. Some moments simply remind us that we already belong.
That's what Klaramühle is growing from. Not instead of our clinical work, but from the very same roots.
Over the coming weeks I'll be sharing more about Klaramühle, photos of the place itself, and the dates of the first planned retreats on our Ausblick Therapie page. If something here resonates with you, please, leave a comment, send me a message or simply follow along. Thank you for listening and for teaching me how to listen more deeply.
