Outstanding IPU Students Honored

At the beginning of the year, IPU Berlin honored four outstanding students from the class of 2025. In addition to the DAAD Prize being awarded to Anna Fitzhugh, the respective theses of Laura Schwarzer, Ivan de Palma, and Jakob Eisemann were also recognized.

DAAD Prize 2025: Anna Fitzhugh

The recipient of this year's DAAD Prize, Anna, comes from the USA and is pursuing a Master's degree in Psychology with a Clinical Focus at IPU Berlin. In addition to her studies, she is committed to helping migrants, marginalized groups, and people with mental illnesses, and has several years of experience in equine-assisted therapy (EAT). This type of therapy supports traumatized people in particular with emotional stabilization; Anna conducts it professionally in Berlin, adhering to all official regulations.

She is also involved in other hands-on work, supporting refugees and their families through the “Moabit hilft” initiative and helping distribute aid supplies through the Nationalities Service Center in Philadelphia. Through these diverse activities, Anna has not only acquired sound scientific expertise, but also international certificates in areas such as refugee and migration trauma, children's rights, and innovative therapeutic approaches.

Given this combination of academic excellence and exceptional social commitment, the IPU jury had no difficulty in unanimously nominating her for the award, as Dr. Jan-Hendrik Olbertz, President of the IPU Berlin, emphasized in his laudatory speech.

The DAAD Prize is a nationwide award for international students at German universities who combine excellent academic achievements with a high level of social and intercultural commitment. It is financed by the Federal Foreign Office and awarded by the universities themselves.

Award-Winning Theses 2025

Best Bachelor's Thesis: Laura Schwarzer

Laura Schwarzer, a graduate of the Bachelor's program in Psychology, has presented an outstanding example of interdisciplinary thinking and clinical sensitivity in her thesis. Supervised by Dr. Florian Dreyer, her thesis (Code-Switching in Psychotherapy – The Exploration of Affective Placeholders) examines the phenomenon of switching between two languages within a therapeutic interaction as an affective placeholder and therapeutic tool.

Based on her interest in multilingualism and psychodynamic processes, Laura shows how patients gradually gain access to emotionally significant content through language switching. In an increasingly multicultural society, this phenomenon is becoming particularly relevant – especially in psychotherapeutic practice, where language is not only a means of communication but also an emotional tool.

Since graduating, Laura has been working in youth welfare, where she puts her professional and empathetic skills directly into practice. From April 2026, she will continue her journey in clinical psychology through the part-time Master's in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at IPU Berlin.

Best Master's Thesis I: Ivan de Palma

Ivan de Palma has made a valuable contribution to clinical research with his master's thesis in the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy program. His thesis (At the Borderline: Clinical Features of Patients With ICD-10 Personality Disorders Presenting With Psychotic Symptoms) focuses on a phenomenon in the field of personality pathologies that has been little researched to date: so-called “borderline cases.”

The focus is on patients who challenge the classic diagnostic categories because, in the context of a personality disorder, they additionally exhibit symptoms that are usually associated the psychotic spectrum.

Using a descriptive analysis of patient data from psychoseambulanz.berlin under the supervision of Dr. Leonie Kampe and Dr. Dorothea von Haebler, Ivan developed a differentiated clinical profile of this patient group. The results of his work show how complex and nuanced the clinical assessment of such cases can be and provide valuable insights for more differentiated diagnosis and therapy planning for these patients.

This year, Ivan is beginning his training in psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults in Berlin. In the future, he plans to continue exploring the research questions of his master's thesis and deepen his scientific knowledge by pursuing further studies.

Best Master's Thesis II: Jakob Eisemann

Jakob Eisemann, graduate of the Master's programme in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, explored the death drive in the works of Sigmund Freud and André Green in his award-winning thesis (Ringen mit einem unsterblichen Gegner. Der Todestrieb als Reflexionskategorie gesellschaftlicher Destruktivität bei Freud und nach „Auschwitz“ [Wrestling with an Immortal Adversary: The Death Drive as a Category of Reflection on Societal Destructiveness in Freud and after Auschwitz]) under the supervision of Dr. Christine Kirchhoff and Arkadi Blatow, M.A..

National Socialism and the long-term consequences of the Shoah have been central themes for Jakob since his initial studies in Sociology in Frankfurt am Main. During his time at the IPU, where he was not only a student assistant to Dr. Gerisch, but also worked in the library and was an active member of the university initiative krIPU, he repeatedly addressed the question of how the catastrophes of the 20th century – in particular the two world wars and the Shoah – affected the development of psychoanalysis.

For Jakob, these questions led him to examine Freud's concept of the death drive, which arose in response to the devastation of the First World War and fundamentally changed psychoanalysis. It remains significant to this day for the psychoanalytic understanding of destructiveness and violence.

Since October 2025, Jakob has been undergoing psychodynamic psychology training at the Institute for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Berlin (IPB). Following his training, he plans to pursue further psychoanalytic specialization. Building on his master's thesis, he is also currently developing a doctoral project on constellations of destructiveness and insight in the history of psychoanalysis.