Why I work with the body, not just the mind.
I am Ruslan, a psychologist (M.Sc.) with a specialisation in neuroscience. That change does not happen in the head but begins in the body, I did not learn from a textbook. I learned it through my own life.
What shaped me
I grew up with instability, confronted early with questions that had no easy answers. What carried me out of that phase was not only discipline or willpower. It was the realisation that lasting change does not happen in the head but begins in the body. And the decision to live that knowledge every day, instead of only knowing it.
For more than ten years calisthenics has been a central part of my training, I completed a yoga teacher training in Rishikesh, and breathwork and meditation are a firm part of my everyday life. These are not hobbies alongside my work as a psychologist, they are its foundation. I know in my own body what nervous-system regulation feels like and what it takes for it to succeed.
My background
For six years I have specialised in neuroscientific psychology and the intersection between the nervous system and body practice. My path led from a master's in psychology with a neuroscience focus, through my own workshops on neuroscientific topics, to my time as a research associate, where I investigated how fear changes the control of balance and movement in the nervous system, and where, as first author together with colleagues from Marburg and TU Darmstadt, I published a peer-reviewed paper on it (Cognitive Science Society, 2024). One insight from it still shapes my work today: under pressure, more control often leads to less stability. This was followed by the yoga teacher training in Rishikesh and my work as a neuropsychologist in outpatient neurorehabilitation. Today I support people in a neuroscience-oriented online counselling practice.
In my work I combine methods from psychology and yoga that have a direct influence on the nervous system. Concretely that means: if your system is chronically activated, I work with you differently than when it has gone into withdrawal. My methodological toolkit is broad, informed by IFS, Somatic Experiencing, polyvagal theory, ACT and schema therapy. Which tool we use when depends on what you need right now, not on a preconceived method. I work in my own online practice as well as in institutional contexts.
Alongside this I am building Metanovia, a platform with which I want to make psychological support more accessible.
How I think
I do not believe in one-school approaches. If someone has been exhausted for years, it does not help to force them into a method because it sounds good right now or because I happen to be good at it. What interests me first is what is currently happening in your nervous system, which strategy your system has trained itself into and why it once made sense. Only then do we decide together what to work with.
For me, change is not an act of willpower but a question of context. Your nervous system does not change because you want it to. It changes when you repeatedly offer it a different state in which it feels safe enough to learn something new. My job is to build that context together with you.
What you experience in counselling
I listen and translate at the same time: what you experience, I map onto the neurobiological mechanisms behind it. That depathologises and takes away shame. You do not see yourself as a problem, but as a system that does what it does for good reasons. From there we take the step from understanding into experiencing together, through body, breath and movement. Because change begins there, in the body, not only in your understanding.
What you should not expect from me
I do not promise quick fixes. Anyone looking for a new life in two sessions is in the wrong place with me. Nervous-system work takes time, not just technique.
I do not pathologise. You are not broken, you are not too sensitive, you do not have a deficit that needs repairing. We work with the system you have, not against it.
I do not offer medical treatment. If you need a diagnosis, a prescription or the treatment of a clinical condition, I am not the right person to turn to. What I offer is psychological counselling and support on a neuroscientific basis.
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Let's talk
If you feel that the way I work fits you, book a free intro call or write to me. We will calmly figure out whether and how I can support you.