Qualification

Primary research and professional practice

Michael Stark studied psychology with a diploma (1977) in Bochum and medicine with a dissertation (1984) in Münster. During his research stay at the Clinical Research Center for the Study of Schizophrenia at Camarillo State Hospital / University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in the late 1970s, he got to know the first behavioral therapy-based psychotherapy approaches for schizophrenic patients, which he then brought back to Germany. He established this approach in the then newly founded psychiatric department at the Quakenbrück hospital, where he worked first as a clinical psychologist, then from 1984, after he graduated from medical school, as an assistant doctor.

At the Quakenbrück Hospital, he established a long-term psychoeducational program for schizophrenic patients. The evaluation of this program was part of his habilitation titled „Experiencing illness and coping with illness from the perspective of schizophrenic patients.“

1985 he was accepted at the Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic of the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg. There, he took over the management of the day clinic, focusing on social psychiatry. In 1995, he was appointed professor of social psychiatry at the UKE. He was also involved in representing the UKE in the working groups of the authority for psychiatry development planning for Hamburg.

The foundation of the psychiatric department at Asklepios Westklinikum Hamburg in Rissen

1999, Prof. Stark left the Eppendorf University Hospital to set up a new psychiatric department at the Asklepios General Hospital in Hamburg as clinical director. In this role, he was able to implement all equipment with a minimum level of environmentally toxic pollution according to building biology criteria. After initially 56 beds and three wards, the department was expanded to include a day clinic in Hamburg-Rissen. It then expanded service for the entire district of Altona, including a second-day clinic in Altona, and the core clinic increased to 120 beds. In doing so, Prof. Stark consistently implemented the socio-psychiatric and psychotherapeutic approaches based on his holistic and appreciative treatment of patients in psychological crises.

The concept of psychoeducation

Prof. Stark further promoted the concept of psychoeducation, to which he was first exposed during his research stipend at the Schizophrenia Research Center at Camarillo Hospital/ UCLA under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Robert Liberman. The therapeutic focus was on informing patients about the possible causes of their illness and the connections with the influencing factors from the direct social and family environment. This procedure became known in Germany under the keyword psychoeducation. Prof. Stark fostered this approach intensively among his psychiatric colleagues, which led to the founding of the German Society for Psychoeducation (DGPE) in 2006, where he served on the board for years. One of the annual congresses he organized in March 2013 in Hamburg.

Committee work

As early as the 1990s, Prof. Stark founded the first training institute for behavioral therapy in Hamburg and helped establish the German Medical Society for Behavioral Therapy (DÄVT), of which he was Vice President until 2003. Within the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN), he co-founded the “Rehabilitation” section, which he headed for many years. From 1995 until 2004, he organized an annual series of congresses called Forum Rehabilitation. He invited not only professionals in the field but also members of the patients‘ and family members‘ self-help groups to participate in creating the content offered every year. In 2007, Prof. Stark began working as a co-founder, lecturer, and supervisor for behavioral therapy at the Institute for Further Education in Behavioral Therapy at the Medical Care Center for Behavioral Therapy in Falkenried in Hamburg.

Cooperation with Eastern Europe

In his scientific work, Prof. Stark included our neighbors in the east, Poland, and the Ukraine. In 1989, he co-founded the German-Polish Society for Mental Health (DPGSG), which had set itself the task of commemorating the crimes of the Nazi era against the mentally ill who were moved from German hospitals to Polish hospitals and killed there. Many innovative partnerships between German and Polish clinics emerged from this initiative. Groups of Polish and Ukrainian colleagues were always guests at the „Forum Rehabilitation“ congresses, which, for them, were a gateway to the West that was rare at the time. For his commitment, Prof. Stark was made an honorary member of the Polish Psychiatric Society. In Ukraine in 1999, he received an honorary doctorate (Dr. h.c.) from the Medical Faculty of the University of Lviv.

International scientific congresses

As early as the mid-1980s, Prof. Stark organized the first conferences on psychotherapy for schizophrenic patients at the psychiatric department of the Quakenbrück Hospital, followed by a conference at Eppendorf University Hospital on ecological and environmental psychiatry and then, from the mid-1990s, congresses on the rehabilitation of mentally ill people, from which a series of congresses arose over the next 14 years: the „Rehabilitation Forum – Focal Points of Psychiatry.“ In 1998, the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation (World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation (WAPR) took place in this series. Prof. Stark was elected to the board of directors for the next few years. In the following years, he was appointed to the World Society for Social Psychiatry (WASP) scientific congress committees. He joined the section Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution (CMCS) of the World Association for Psychiatry (WPA), where he was elected chairman in 2009. To this day, he puts together symposia for the section at scientific congresses.

Mental health at work – ways of prevention and rehabilitation

In 2012, Prof. Stark was reappointed to the board of the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation to manage an international project on the subject of „Mental Health at Work—Ways of Prevention and Rehabilitation.“ In particular, he brings his many years of experience on the topic of stress, which is based on the „vulnerability-stress-disease concept,“ which is the basis of the psychotherapeutic approaches for psychiatric patients.

Current and future projects

In June 2013, Prof. Stark handed over the Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in the Asklepios West Clinic to his successor. He then founded the Prof. Stark Institute. The main focus was the development of an integrative diagnostic procedure for patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Here, he and his colleague Dr. Christof Ziaja, who, as a sports scientist, brought his experience in the care of high-performance athletes, developed stress measurement methods that can map the regulatory ability of the autonomic nervous system.

This is done in two main areas:

The practice of Prof. Stark

In his private practice in Hamburg, Prof. Stark dedicates himself to the individual diagnosis and therapy of stress and fatigue symptoms, using the holistic Prof. Stark method that has proven itself over many years. After initial careful diagnostics on a physical and psychological level, Prof. Stark offers options for classic individual or group therapy. As part of his holistic approach, Dr. Christof Ziaja, a sports scientist who developed biophysical movement therapy (BBT), offers diagnostic and physical therapy for stress and fatigue symptoms.

The Prof. Stark Institute

The Prof. Stark Health Competence Center (UG) also offers innovative forms of interaction for people who cannot come to Hamburg,
such as the online Test Center, as well as the Prevention Center, an innovative information, diagnostic, and advisory service for interested individuals and especially for managers and employees of companies and institutions (Company Special), which is to be further expanded in the next few years. Research, publications, and congresses support this social approach.

• A new 5-star Seal of approval.

We are working on a new project to develop and award seals of approval for companies that are committed to the mental health of their employees. In cooperation with the World Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation (WAPR), we plan to distribute the seals worldwide.

• Scientific research and publications

Through research, international congresses, and publications, the longstanding experience and results of the Prof. Stark method should be further developed and passed on to committed multipliers and experts from psychology, medicine, and business in the future. In this way, not only should the individual be supported, but a contribution should also be made to the social debate about the risks and consequences of the increasing psychosomatic stress in everyday life and the work environment. At the same time, the dialogue about the latest findings on a scientifically sound diagnosis and therapy offer is to be promoted to discuss and disseminate new approaches – especially in prevention.

Close cooperation exists with the Stress Research Center of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, with Prof. Dr. W. Linden and the Social Psychiatric Department of the Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland, with Prof. Dr. A. Cechnicki.

• Training and supervision in the Prof. Stark method

As part of the Prof-Stark Institute, supervision and further training of psychotherapists in the Prof. Stark method for the diagnosis and therapy of psychosomatic disorders is planned. See also Prof. Stark Akademie

• „Fortitude North“

Prof. Stark is also involved in the club „Seelenstark-Nord“, who has set himself the task of unconventionally supporting patients in psychiatric care – inpatient or outpatient -, their relatives, as well as employees in the psychiatric care facilities. The establishment of a corresponding foundation is in planning.

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