Helm Stierlin

Stierlin interrupted his stay in America for one year from 1963 to 1964 in order to pursue further training at the Sanatory Bellevue in Kreuzlingen.

During his time in the US, Stierlin got to know the most important pioneers in the field of family therapy research, including Gregory Bateson, Milton H. Erickson, Jay Haley, Margaret Mead, Salvador Minuchin, Virginia Satir and John Weakland.

In 1974 Helm Stierlin received a call to the University Clinic Heidelberg for the newly established chair Department of Psychoanalytic Basic Research and Family Therapy.

[19] Stierlin familiarized his students with the interdisciplinary discourses and research results in the field of etiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenic diseases.

This includes the work of Gregory Bateson, Wilfred Bion, Murray Bowen, Hilde Bruch, Noam Chomsky, Albert Ellis, George L. Engel, Erik H. Erikson, Milton Erickson, Sándor Ferenczi, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Stanislav Grof, Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, Jay Haley, Heinz Hartmann, Bärbel Inhelder, Don D. Jackson, Edith Jacobson, Otto Kernberg, Melanie Klein, Ronald D. Laing, Alexander Mitscherlich, Harry Stack Sullivan, Norbert Wiener and Lyman Wynne.

Stierlin succeeded in organizing interdisciplinary advanced training congresses in Heidelberg, including physicians, psychologists, neurobiologists, molecular biologists, sociologists, communication science, computer science, cybernetics, linguists and other interdisciplinary researchers came to exchange ideas with their colleagues and the student body through lectures and seminars.

Stierlin was co-founder of the Systemic Family Therapy Program at the Psychotherapeutic Institute Bergerhausen founded by Hans-Werner Gessmann.

Emerging from the Heidelberg School of Systemic Therapy founded by Helm Stierlin in 1975 the hsi in Haus Schmeil, a large old villa located in a park near Heidelberg Castle, has since been training experts in health care, social work, education, management consulting and other human services in the theory and practice of various systemic consulting approaches.