Helmut Graf (psychotherapist)

Helmut Graf (born December 20, 1954 in Austria ) is an Austrian psychotherapist , work psychologist , management consultant and business mediator . He is also active as a specialist journalist and specialist book author .

Live and act

Career

After graduating from high school and studying theology , pedagogy and psychology, Graf graduated with a master's degree in philosophy; then he took on various management positions in the industrial and banking sectors. In 1995 he started his own business as a managing partner of logo consult Unternehmensberatung GmbH in Rosegg, Austria .

After various developments in systemic psychotherapy as well as the existential analysis of Viktor Frankl Graf 2002 at the University of Klagenfurt received his doctorate in psychology. Since then he has been working as a resident psychotherapist and is particularly active for managers in particularly stressful situations.

Business and Work Psychotherapy (WAP)

Graf is committed to the scientific recognition of psychotherapy, whereby he sees its future in the specialization in various fields of activity.

"Psychotherapy is a scientific direction."

- Helmut Graf : 2nd World Congress for Psychotherapy in Vienna, July 1999

He is particularly concerned with workplace health promotion and represents the systemically oriented, logotherapeutically oriented existential analysis for managers in emotional stressful situations. Graf wrote various papers on the integration of psychotherapy into the world of work, primarily dealing with motivation and finding meaning in the workplace in the context of systemic teaching and the work of his role model Viktor Frankl. In 2003 his work Psychotherapy in the Working World was published , which for the first time in German-speaking countries provided a scientific basis for the assignment of various intervention instruments in personnel and organizational development to the Frankl value categories.

In psychotherapy in the world of work, Graf examined in particular the correlation of Frankl's teaching with motivational values ​​such as "creative values" (performance, design options for work), "experience values" (expression of personality and social for and with one another) and "attitude values" (attitude values ​​towards life , Work and unchangeable situations) and made it clear that psychotherapeutic intervention models for the world of work are more than post-traumatic emergency instruments. In the opinion of Alfred Pritz , President of the World Association for Psychotherapy, Graf laid the foundations for mentally meaning-centered health promotion in the company value creation process - especially for managers in small and medium-sized companies. His book is "an important contribution to the understanding of the emotional in business life" . The work is now considered a " bestseller " in occupational medicine literature.

Graf demands, among other things, that psychotherapy should work independently and autonomously as a health profession in the economy, in addition to occupational medicine and industrial psychology.

Workplace health promotion (BGF)

Also in 2003, Graf and Vincent Grote examined workplace health promotion (BGF) in the context of personnel and organizational development in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the perspective of managers . Graf and Grote came to the conclusion that business, social and individual framework conditions have a significant influence on psychological and somatic complaints. In particular, they mentioned: back pain , tiredness, concentration problems, mood swings, nervousness and sleep disorders .

Graf and Grote found the strongest psychosocial stress in the following subject areas and areas: work and time pressure, stress , psychological and professional overload , little time for family and private life and for management , leadership and organization . The subjective feeling of stress and complaints is negatively related to motivation: the higher the stress experienced, the lower the motivation. According to Graf and Grote, high average working hours (over 50 hours per week), demotivation and high individual stress are responsible to a considerable extent (41%) for the complaints found (regression model).

According to Graf and Grote, around 20% of the managers surveyed had (very) critical values ​​for complaints and psychosocial stress, so that the quality of the work suffered. Stress factors that have a significant influence on motivation are, according to Graf / Grote: demotivating working atmosphere ; Problems arising from management, leadership and organization; insecure job; little sense in professional life; insufficient development of one's own abilities; Bullying .

Graf is also practically involved in the implementation of Frankl's principles of logotherapy and existential analysis in the BGF, for the first time at the electronics manufacturer WILD Austria in the Carinthian Völkermarkt (2004/05). In this project called “WILD.Gesunder Vorsprung” funded by the Healthy Austria Fund (FGÖ) , internal stress was reduced, the working atmosphere improved and employees achieved higher levels of performance. The successful project has meanwhile been awarded the Austrian “BGF-Oskar 2005” and a special award (see section Awards) .

Further work

In 2005, on the occasion of Frankl's 100th birthday, Graf published the textbook Leading With Sense and Values , with which he presented an homage to Frankl and compared his practical experience with Frankl's models. This secondary literary work is now one of the most important publications about Viktor Frankl and has also advanced to become a "bestseller" in the field of specialist logotherapy literature.

Graf also publishes specialist articles on various psychotherapeutic topics in the world of work and is active as a speaker at lecture events, specialist congresses and seminars, for example at the Althofen Encounters in Althofen in April 2004 on the subject of "Health Management and Economics" at a specialist congress of the South German Institute for Logotherapy in Fürstenfeldbruck in June 2007 on the subject of “Logotherapy” and at various lecture events in the Viktor Frankl Center in Vienna, founded in 2004/05 . Among other things, he also offers events that are certified by the Austrian Federal Association for Psychotherapy (ÖBVP) as recognized " advanced training for psychotherapists" . At the research, education and consulting project "Psyche and Economy" operated by the Sigmund Freud University of Vienna since autumn 2006, Graf is one of the speakers in the subject area "Business and Work Psychotherapy".

In 2007 his new work was published on the subject of collective neuroses in management , which has meanwhile achieved "bestseller status" in the specialist literature on the subject of "neuroses".

In Carinthia , Graf is accredited as a registered business mediator for arbitration in civil law matters.

Awards

In 2005, the Austrian Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ÖNBGF) awarded the BGF project “WILD.Gesunder Vorsprung” the award for workplace health promotion , the so-called “BGF-Oskar” (1st place) as an outstanding workplace health promotion project in Austria Price in the evaluation of companies with more than 100 employees). For the same project, the supervised company WILD Austria received the special award for extensive participation from the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labor .

Works

Monographs

• Helmut Graf: Psychotherapy in the world of work . Springer-Verlag , Vienna a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-211-00824-1 . (Excerpts from the book preview as digitized version ; reviews :)
• Helmut Graf: The collective neuroses in management. Viktor Frankl - Ways out of the crisis of meaning in the executive suite . Linde Verlag , Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7093-0149-4 . (Media combination, with DVD; reviews :)

Anthologies

• Helmut Graf (ed.): Leading with meaning and values. What Viktor E. Frankl has to say to managers. For the 100th birthday of VE Frankl . LIT Verlag , Vienna u. a. 2005 (= Personnel and Organization, Vol. 22), ISBN 3-8258-8373-6 . (Collection of articles; 232 p .; excerpts from a book preview as a digitized version )

items

• Helmut Graf: Possibilities and limits of the psychotherapeutic offer in the economy . In: Alfred Pritz, Thomas Wenzel (ed.): The world of psychotherapy: Myth - dream - reality. Selected contributions from the 2nd World Congress for Psychotherapy, Vienna 1999 . Facultas-Verlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85076-497-4 , pp. 267-286. (Contribution partly in German, partly in English)
• Helmut Graf, Vincent Grote: The effects of physical complaints and psychosocial stress on motivation. A study result . In: Helmut Graf (ed.): Leading with meaning and values ; LIT Verlag, Vienna u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8373-6 , pp. 147-164.
• Helmut Graf: If leaders want to improve motivation, they have to reduce stress. Or: a test procedure for meaningful and value-oriented management . In: Helmut Graf (ed.): Leading with meaning and values ; LIT Verlag, Vienna u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8373-6 , p. 193 ff.

Audio cassettes

• Helmut Graf: Myth, Dream, Reality; Part: DI31; Possibilities and limits of the psychotherapeutic offer in the economy . Vier-Türme-Verlag, Münsterschwarzach 2002. (audio cassette)

Scientific studies, project reports

• Helmut Graf, Vincent Grote: Workplace health promotion as personnel and organizational development in small and medium-sized companies from the perspective of managers. 2003 . Healthy Austria Fund, Vienna; Scientific study, logo consult Unternehmensberatung, Rosegg 2003. ("SME study"; available online as a digital version of the University of Duisburg-Essen , PDF file)
• Helmut Graf: WILD. Healthy head start. Workplace health promotion - final report . Healthy Austria Fund, Vienna; Project report, logo consult Unternehmensberatung, Rosegg 2006.

Web links

• Short biography of Helmut Graf in the online database for company health promotion (BGF) / Austrian network for company health promotion
• Outstanding importance of workplace health promotion in small and medium-sized enterprises - report on the "SME study" by Graf / Grote on ohc - the "one health continuum" platform (accessed February 6, 2008)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "The many schools of psychotherapy: Everything is 'spiritual'"! , Report by Thomas Kramar, Die Presse , Vienna, July 9, 1999
2. ↑ ^{a b} Book tip / review: Psychotherapy in the world of work; Helmut Graf ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Doctors Week , Volume 18 No. 6, 2004  
3. ↑ ^{a b} Speaker profile of Helmut Graf on bestnet.com, 2007
4. ^ See foreword by Alfred Pritz on psychotherapy in the world of work
5. ↑ See u. a. "Sales rank" in the occupational medicine literature area at amazon.de (accessed February 6, 2008)
6. ↑ Helmut Graf, Vincent Grote: Company health promotion as personnel and organizational development in small and medium-sized companies from the perspective of managers. 2003 . ("SME study"; see literature)
7. ↑ Official website of the Healthy Austria Fund ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ BGF project Wild Gesunder Vorsprung ( memento of the original from June 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on fgoe.org, Fonds Gesundes Österreich  
9. ↑ Discover meaning in work ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Report in the FGÖ magazine Gesundes Österreich , issue 2/2006, p. 45 (excerpts as PDF file; see p. 12 of 19; 1.7 MB) 
10. ↑ See u. a. "Sales rank" in the literature areas Frankl, secondary literature and logotherapy at amazon.de (accessed February 6, 2008)
11. ↑ Althofen encounters as part of the platform "LIK - Lebenskunst im Krankenhaus" , 2004  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Program, LIK - the art of living in the hospital , Althofen ( PDF file)  
12. ^ Specialist congress: Contexts of meaning in business. Significance of logotherapy according to Viktor Frankl for the economy , 2007 ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Program, South German Institute for Logotherapy , Fürstenfeldbruck ( PDF file)  
13. ^ Articles: Business and industrial psychotherapy…; Helmut Graf , program announcement on bestnet.com, with certification notice and link
14. ↑ Sigmund Freud Private University: Psyche and Economy , short project information and list of speakers at sfu.ac.at
15. ↑ See u. a. "Sales rank" in the literature area neuroses at amazon.de (accessed February 6, 2008)
16. ^ Mediation in civil law matters, list of mediators for Carinthia: Helmut Graf , published by the Federal Ministry of Justice , Austria
17. ↑ Official website of the Austrian Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ÖNBGF) ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
18. ↑ Price for workplace health promotion ( memento of the original dated December 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.netzwerk-bgf.at, Austrian Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ÖNBGF)  
19. ↑ BGF award winners over 100 employees (2005)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.netzwerk-bgf.at, Austrian Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ÖNBGF)  
20. ↑ Austrian Prize for Workplace Health Promotion  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Report in the NEWSletter of the Austrian Contact Point Workplace Health Promotion , edition 4/05, p. 2 ( PDF file; 1.2 MB)  
21. ^ Helmut Graf: Psychotherapy in the world of work , review by Günther Köhnlein, Berlin, December 2004, on www.ppfi.de, PPFI - Psychological and Psychotherapeutic Further Education Offers on the Internet
22. ↑ Review in: WMW Wiener Medical Wochenschrift , ISSN  0043-5341 , Volume 155, Numbers 13–14 / July 2005, pp. 344–345.
23. ↑ Where there is sense, there is no need for motivation  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Review by Sylvie Maier, November 16, 2007, on journale.apa.at, APA-OnlineJournale ( PDF file)  
24. ↑ New roses for management. The price of our way of doing business is collective neuroses - a conversation with Helmut Graf , book review by Anja Dilk, changeX online magazine , December 3, 2007
25. ↑ Helmut Graf: The collective neuroses in management , review by Bärbel Schwertfeger, Psychologie heute , issue 2/2008