Lena trained as a psychotherapist in Berlin before the limitations of the clinic chair led her elsewhere. She spent two years working with communities in rural Portugal, running informal therapeutic circles outdoors — in fields, under trees, around fires — and found that the removal of the clinical setting changed something fundamental about how people were willing to speak. That observation became the foundation of everything she does.

Her approach is integrative in the truest sense: she draws from psychodynamic theory, Internal Family Systems, Jungian dreamwork, and contemplative practice, but wears none of these labels heavily. What matters to her is what is actually useful for the person in front of her. Her retreats tend to be quieter and more inward than others in the Sanctum programme — less movement, more stillness, more space to let difficult things surface without rushing to resolve them.

At Sanctum, Lena leads the Desert Ceremony in Marrakech alongside Maya Alves, where she holds the therapeutic container for the inner work that the ceremony opens up. She also runs immersive integration retreats in the Swiss Alps each spring for small groups of up to eight people.