Wouter Janssens
The overthinking, the distance at home, the tiredness sleep doesn't fix: one system wearing different costumes. Essays and one-to-one work.
For years I did everything right and couldn't explain why it wasn't working.
I had the routines. The books — shelves of them. I could explain my own patterns better than most people can explain their job. And still: the replayed sentence at 2am. The tone in the hallway that wasn't mine. † The flatness of a Sunday afternoon in a life that, from the outside, had nothing wrong with it.The honest version: the tools weren't failing. They were revealing. Underneath the habits and the knowledge, something older was running — loyalties I never agreed to, protections that had outlived their job, a role I'd played so long I called it my personality. Not four problems. One system, installed before I could speak.So I went and learned how that system works — years of classrooms and training rooms first, then the depth traditions themselves: family constellations, parts work, the body. Now I write from inside that work, and hold a small 1:1 practice alongside it — a few people at a time.The essays walk this territory one ordinary moment at a time: the hallway at 7:45, the mind at 2am, the dinner table that only discusses logistics. The foundation underneath them is free, on purpose — the deeper work should be survivable before anyone pays for anything.Start with the first essay; it tells the whole story, honestly. And you can reply to anything I send — it comes straight to me. I read everything, and I answer most of it.
What this is
The Integrated Life is built on one claim: the overthinking, the snapping at your kids, the distance in your marriage, the tiredness that sleep doesn't fix — these aren't separate problems. They are one system wearing different costumes. Seeing the system is the beginning. Meeting it is the work. Reading creates recognition; change happens in practice.
Where to start
The origin essay first — where all of this comes from, personally. Then the floor: the Observer practice and The Body That Holds You, both free. Then, if you want to see your own version of the system: the Shadow Audit.
Who this is for
The parent who heard an old voice come out of their mouth and watched their child's face change. The professional whose success stopped landing somewhere around forty. The partner living inside a well-run silence. The strong one that nobody thinks to check on.
What happens in the room
You arrive with something ordinary. The sentence you keep replaying. The tone that came out of your mouth at 7:45. The tiredness that sleep doesn't fix. We start there — not with your history, and not with a plan.What we do is slower and simpler than most people expect. We look at what's running underneath the thing you brought: the loyalties you never agreed to, the protections that have outlived their job, the role you've played so long it stopped feeling like a role. Not to explain it. To meet it.Some of that happens in conversation. Some of it happens in the body, because the body got there first and usually remembers more. Nothing happens that you haven't agreed to, and you can stop anything at any point without explaining why.
The shape
Six sessions to open. Sixty to ninety minutes each, online, roughly every two weeks — the gap between them is part of the work, not a scheduling convenience.At the end of the six we decide together whether to continue. Continuing is a decision, not a default, and I'll tell you honestly what I think.
First conversation is 20 minutes, free
The opening is €1200 - six sessions
Before any of it: twenty minutes, free, no preparation. You don't need a clear question — "something in the essays keeps nagging at me" is a complete reason to book.The purpose of that conversation is to find out whether this is right, including whether it isn't. I say no reasonably often, and I say why.
€1,200 is a founding rate for the first ten people, and it will not stay. I'd rather say that plainly than have you find out later.
When there is no room
I work with a small number of people at a time, and there are stretches when that's full. If it is when you write, you'll hear so from me within three working days — never silence.What you get is the honest version: roughly when a place opens, whether I think waiting is the right call for you, and what I'd suggest in the meantime. Sometimes that's someone else, and I'll say so.I keep a short list. It's short on purpose, and nobody goes on it without being asked first.
What this is and isn't
For most people reading this, the essays and the free material are enough. That's the design, not modesty.What this is and isn't. This is not psychotherapy and it is not medical care. I'm not a physician or a clinical psychologist, and nothing here treats or diagnoses a condition. If you're working with a therapist or a doctor, this can sit alongside that, and I'd want to know about it.
If you are in crisis right now, look beyond this page. You find your country's emergency number or others like Samaritans, Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For many countries in local language, https://findahelpline.com/ can be helpful.