About
Deep Emotional Work Academy is the training and education arm under Emotion Coaching gUG, a German nonprofit entity founded in 2015.
The Academy exists to make excellent emotional care more teachable, more responsible, and more accessible. Its work centers on Deep Emotional Work (DEW) by Matthias Behrends: a structured, science-based system for emotional stabilization, resource-oriented inner work, and emotional processing.
What Deep Emotional Work Is
Deep Emotional Work (DEW) by Matthias Behrends is a multimodal system that integrates refined adaptations of science-based concepts and techniques for emotional work into one streamlined approach. The selection of techniques depends on the person, context, objective, and level of responsibility held by the professional or organization using the work.
DEW does not present itself as an entirely new invention. Its contribution is the purposeful refinement, integration, and careful application of established technique families so they can be taught and used with professional discernment.
Technique Families
The Academy teaches a structured combination of:
- Guided Affective Imagery and Breathing Techniques for resource-oriented inner work, grounding, emotional stabilization, and structured self-experience.
- Bilateral Stimulation for Emotional Processing (a.k.a. EMDR) as a methodology family used with clear boundaries and without presenting DEW as EMDR therapy or a replacement for clinical EMDR training.
- Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) strategies and techniques for orientation, reframing, practice structure, and practical integration.
These methods are taught within trauma-informed principles, humanistic psychology, and depth psychology, primarily according to C. G. Jung. DEWA also emphasizes consent, supervision, referral routes, role clarity, and safe use, because technique quality depends on the judgment and setting in which methods are applied.
DEW is science-based. It is not spiritual, religious, esoteric, or New Age. It can be compatible with faith-based contexts, but it does not require or promote a faith-based framework.
Evidence And Intellectual Honesty
DEW rests on a dual foundation: established science in its component methodology families and practical validation through Academy experience and evaluation. Component methods such as CBT strategies and bilateral stimulation / EMDR-related principles have their own research bases; DEW draws on that foundation without claiming that the whole integrated system is itself a peer-reviewed clinical treatment.
Founder And Lineage
Matthias Behrends is the founder of Deep Emotional Work Academy and founder / Managing Director of Emotion Coaching gUG. His work includes emotional stabilization education, professional training, and humanitarian or social-sector engagement in multiple international contexts.
MB cites Dr. med. Charlotte Baltrusch (ret.) as his teacher, mentor, and a primary source of the practical emotional-work techniques that later informed Deep Emotional Work.
The Academy honors this lineage with gratitude while taking full responsibility for its own current structure, terminology, implementation decisions, training standards, and public materials. This acknowledgement does not imply review, approval, endorsement, co-authorship, or responsibility by Dr. Baltrusch for current Academy publications, DESG materials, or local implementations.
Experience Behind The Academy
Academy-relevant work includes trainings and workshops for German municipalities and civil-society organizations, university and medical-education contexts, social-sector teams in Colombia, introductory trainings at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences in India, work with caregivers and vulnerable-population support contexts, pro bono supervision in Bangladesh, online consultation after the Nepal earthquake, psychological first aid after the 2017 Barcelona mass-casualty event, and open-access emotional-stabilization resources in Ukrainian and Bengali.
This experience is not used as a promise of outcome. It is the background for a practical Academy standard: serious techniques, taught with role clarity, adapted to context, and bounded by professional responsibility.
Who The Academy Serves
The Academy serves two main audiences with one standard of excellence:
- Professional practitioners such as therapists, psychologists, counselors, coaches, wellness professionals, bodyworkers, and other qualified helpers who want a deeper, structured skill set for emotional work within their scope of practice.
- Humanitarian and social-sector professionals such as social workers, NGO staff, crisis responders, caregivers, educators, and community workers who need practical emotional-stabilization tools under real-world constraints.
The application context differs. The quality standard does not.
Current Public Work
The Academy's current public release focus is Deep Emotional Stabilization Groups, a free Creative Commons implementation kit for locally organized emotional stabilization groups.
DESG shows the Academy standard in public form: practical methods, scripts, consent and privacy boundaries, safeguarding and referral logic, language review, implementation assistance, and field-learning discipline.
Professional Boundary
DEWA materials are non-clinical professional education by default. They are not medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, treatment, psychotherapy, cure, or a guaranteed mental-health outcome. Any clinical use, patient-facing application, or integration into institutional standards of practice requires review, adaptation, approval, and supervision by qualified authorities within the receiving institution. Matthias Behrends is not a licensed therapist or psychologist.
Entity
Deep Emotional Work Academy is operated by Emotion Coaching gUG.
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