Klaus Grawe
He grounded therapy in the brain's basic needs.
German researcher who built an evidence-based, integrative "psychological therapy" on the idea that distress arises when basic needs go unmet and the mind loses consistency.
Psychotherapy should be built on what the evidence shows actually helps people change.
Who they were
Klaus Grawe was a German psychologist and psychotherapy researcher whose large reviews of outcome studies pushed the field toward an evidence-based, integrative model. His consistency theory holds that mental health depends on satisfying basic psychological needs and maintaining consistency among mental processes; symptoms arise from incongruence between what a person needs and what they experience. He distilled this into "psychological therapy" and, later, neuropsychotherapy, linking these principles to the brain.
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Best known as a theorist — their ideas shaped the techniques of those who followed.
Their big idea
Consistency Theory
Klaus Grawe proposed that the mind strives to satisfy basic psychological needs and to keep its processes consistent with one another. Distress arises from incongruence — when experience clashes with need or goals work against each other — and effective therapy works by restoring that fit.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Grawe — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.