Among other things, they suffered from anxiety, exhaustion and depression: the 632 people who sought advice from the psychological counseling center for marriage, family and life issues in Weilheim in 2020.
The point of contact is experiencing growing demand.
Head Paulo Nicoly-Menezes suspects that there would be an increased influx even without a pandemic.
Weilheim / Landkreis
- Although the consultations last year were shaped by the corona crisis, says Nicoly-Menezes - this was just as noticeable in individual counseling as in couples and family counseling.
But the head of the facility is of the opinion that the need for support would increase even without the corona crisis.
In case of partnership conflicts and personal crises
The number of cases from the pre-Corona period speaks for his assumption: They climbed from 319 in 2018 to 380 in the following year. Last year there were 394 cases. The consultants were confronted with conflicts in their partnership and at work as well as with personal crises. The number of clients (several possible per case) rose from 518 to 632 from 2018 to 2020 - even though not all offers could take place as planned due to the pandemic. Not only the numbers of the psychological counseling center for marriage, family and life issues (EFL) in Weilheim are recorded, but also those of their branch offices in Starnberg and Landsberg. For this year Nicoly-Menezes is assuming that there will be another significant increase in numbers. "If things continue like this, more staff will actually be needed",he says.
Nicoly-Menezes started his position at EFL Weilheim on September 1, 2020.
Prior to this, Birgit Misgeld was temporarily at the helm of the advice center as the technical manager, as Eva Micus had already resigned from the management position on March 31, 2020.
Nicoly-Menezes is a marriage, family and life counselor, graduate philosopher and graduate theologian.
He comes from Brazil and did his doctorate in theology in Germany.
Most recently he worked as deputy head of the EFL in Kempten.
After a year at his new job, he says: "I have a good feeling that the team is also satisfied."
Advisory services in several languages
As he is a migrant himself, Nicoly-Menezes attaches great importance to advising people with a migration background, as he makes clear.
It is important to him to expand the range of offerings at EFL Weilheim accordingly.
The employees are already offering advice in English, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese as well as in other languages with an interpreter.
The need for advice among people with a migration background is very great, says Nicoly-Menezes.
His intercultural and interdenominational team is suitable to help this group as well.
70 of the 632 advice seekers in 2020 had a migration background.
One of the goals of the EFL boss is to cooperate with institutions that also work with this clientele.
In the previous year, EFL Weilheim registered a total of 1937 consulting hours (+ 102 compared to 2019).
Advising 220 couples took up the lion's share of 1021 hours.
The individual counseling accounted for 698 hours, the counseling of eleven families 41 and the group counseling 26 hours.
The range of topics in the group counseling offered by EFL Weilheim is broad: According to Nicoly-Menezes, it is about the different roles of men as well as partnership in the age of new media and the question "Who is part of my inner team?" .´
According to the EFL director, the offer in the Landsberg branch has been expanded.
New rooms are currently being sought for these.
Contact the EFL
in Weilheim (Waisenhausstrasse 1) on 0881/901150911.
