He is the Alexander von Humboldt Professor and recipient of the LOEWE[1] Spitzenprofessur for Translational Clinical Psychology at the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany, examining cognitive behavioral therapy,[2] especially for anxiety disorders.
[citation needed]He majored in Psychology at the Philipps University of Marburg, where he eventually earned his Ph.D. in 1993.
An important mechanism of exposure therapy for anxiety disorders is extinction learning.
Hofmann has shown that d-cycloserine, a partial agonist of the glutamate receptor can augment extinction learning and speed up exposure therapy of anxiety disorders.
In collaboration with Steven C. Hayes and David Sloan Wilson, he has been developing Process-based Therapy (PBT), an idiographic treatment approach based on cognitive behavioral therapy that combines insights from evolution theory and complex network theory to target processes that underlie effective psychological treatments.