About Me
I'm Tina Michaela Hoffmann — a NARM® Therapist, Trauma Specialist, Psychosocial Counsellor, and founder of the Trauma Transformation Training School. With over 25 years of clinical and educational experience across Austria, China, and beyond, I work at the intersection of trauma therapy, professional training, and cross-cultural understanding.
I work with individuals, adults and children, couples, and professionals in English, German, and Chinese-speaking contexts, offering therapy and training online across borders and time zones.
For more than 25 years, I have worked clinically with children, adults, and families across a wide range of settings — including child protection services, family support, rehabilitation and pioneering international Counselling therapy, and have led trauma training programmes for professionals and organisations in Austria, China, and internationally. This breadth of lived and clinical experience is what I bring to every session and every course.
Education, qualifications & professional training
My foundation is built on decades of rigorous, multi-disciplinary academic and clinical training — from an Austrian Master's in Psychosocial Counselling, to a 3-year NARM® certification with the model's originator, Laurence Heller, and specialist training in European-led Trauma Pedagogy through Austria's leading trauma psychology body. This depth of formation, across education, psychology, and trauma therapy, shapes every aspect of how I work.
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Psychotherapy Studies
ZAP - Centre for Applied Psychology
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Master's degree in Psychosocial Counselling
Danube University Krems, Austria
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NARM® - Neuro Affective Relationship Model for Healing Developmental Trauma (3-year training)
Laurence Heller
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Trauma Pedagogy and Trauma-centred Counselling (2-year training)
ÖTPZ (DeGPT: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychotraumatologie), Austria
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Registered Psychological Counsellor
LSB, Austria
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Diploma in Psychological Counselling (4-year training)
LSB, CLS, Austria
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Bachelor exam for educational sciences
Keppler University Linz, Austria
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Educated as a Kindergarten/primary school teacher
Austria and Berlin, Germany
Practical Work Experience
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Children’s advocate
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Intensive family support, on behalf of Child and Youth Welfare Services
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Private practice
Vienna and internationally
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Social counselling for women in sexwork
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Visitation support during highly contentious divorces
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Founder and director of Trauma Transformation Counselling School
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Co-creator and Counselor of two international counselling and training centres
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Establishment of residential homes and rehabilitation centres for orphans
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Nursery, Pre-school and after-school care teacher
How I work: Connection that heals
My approach blends:
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NARM® (NeuroAffective Relational Model)
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Trauma Pedagogy & Play Therapy
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Build attachment focused regulation and resilience
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Somatic and body-based awareness
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Intercultural therapy & global mobility understanding
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Mindfulness-based Emotional Completion
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Relational presence, safety, and attunement
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Heart-based Mindfulness
Our work together is integrative, culturally attuned, and deeply respectful of the survival patterns that once protected you.
I don’t push, force or analyse from above.
I walk beside you — steady, attuned, grounded.
I offer therapy and training in:
- English
- German
- Chinese-speaking settings
(with Chinese clients choosing between English/German sessions or interpreter-supported sessions)
Together, we explore what keeps you stuck in patterns of:
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Numbness
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Emotional exhaustion
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Shame
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People pleasing
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Disconnection
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Procrastination
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Toxic relational dynamics
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Intercultural stress and uprootedness
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Feeling neglected or being a “family outcast”
And step by step, you rediscover your own capacity for:
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Connection
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Self-regulation
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Authentic relationship
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Emotional freedom
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Felling 'alive' again
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Belonging
I have Southern German and Austrian roots and have lived half my life in Asia, where I am a Co-Founder of two Counselling Centres in China and Thailand.
Currently based in Vienna. Having raised three children in a foreign country and going through trauma and crisis challenges has given me deep and comprehensive insights into the human life experience and its possibilities.
For more than 25 years, I’ve accompanied people as they move from survival into wholehearted aliveness.
I believe healing is not about fixing what is “wrong” — It’s about reconnecting with the truth of who you are...
A person who is worthy.
A person who belongs.
A person who is capable of living fully, freely, and whole.
Who I support
Individuals (English, German, Chinese-speaking clients).
Adults healing from:
- Frequently experienced strain in relationships
- Complex trauma / C-PTSD
- Emotional numbness
- Shame, guilt and identity wounds
- Toxic or narcissistic dynamics
- Intercultural stress and displacement
- Burnout and emotional exhaustion
- Anxiety about expressing and standing up for one’s own needs
- Loss, grief, depression
- Unfulfilling partnership, heartbreak & betrayal
- Frequently judging oneself
- Having difficulty sensing and perceiving one’s own body
- Feeling overwhelmed and flooded by stimuli and impressions
- Feeling excessively responsible
- Withdrawing from social contacts
- Suffering from psychosomatic symptoms
My path: The teacher who became a Trauma specialist
My work began in an unexpected place — in China, where I volunteered while raising my own children far from home.
It was a time shaped by cultural displacement, isolation, and the shock of witnessing profound trauma:
I saw the effects of developmental trauma, neglect, and abuse, as well as the lasting impacts of Complex trauma (C-PTSD): difficulty regulating emotions, emotional numbness, or extreme emotional reactions; negative self-concept like persistent feelings of worthlessness, guilt, shame, or defeat; interpersonal difficulties like struggles with forming or maintaining close relationships, or feeling disconnected from others.
At the same time, I was facing the painful discovery of transgenerational trauma in my marriage and family line.
I saw trauma from every angle — personal, relational, systemic, spiritual, cross-cultural.
And there was nowhere to go to.
No trauma-informed support.
No understanding of developmental trauma.
No language for emotional neglect or heartbreak
No space to feel, to name, to heal.
This became the turning point.
I promised to become the support I couldn’t find —
and to build support systems that worked across cultures and across languages.
That promise shaped everything I do.
Recognising that 'trauma-informed' wasn't enough
For the deep and often silent suffering of people with complex relational trauma-experiences, common PTSD symptoms (re-experiencing flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts related to trauma; avoiding reminders of the trauma, or hyperarousal: heightened alertness, exaggerated startle response, insomnia, irritability) were just not enough to explain and help people who experience relational neglect, violence or manipulation or support those who witness trauma second hand.
The Trauma Transformation Academy was born
I discovered that healing trauma and preventing burnout among Support & Service Professionals require the same foundation: Trauma competence, an understanding of the human needs of children and adults, and the capacity for authentic connection.
In NARM, I found the model I had been looking for: helping people discover their authentic selves, form wholehearted connections, find emotional completion, and rediscover their core life power.
At the same time, I continue to dedicate myself to one-to-one therapy with individuals and couples.
These clients benefit not only from my deep expertise in Complex trauma and C-PTSD but also from the ongoing insights I gain through teaching and training.
The two sides of my work continually enrich one another: my individual clients receive the depth and clarity of an educator’s perspective, while the professionals I train benefit from the lived, real-world practice of working closely with trauma every day.
And through my therapy practice, I continue to walk alongside individuals and couples as they move from survival into wholehearted aliveness.
The Trauma Transformation Academy: Healing Helpers, Supporting Professionals, Strengthening Communities
Today, my three-level training programme has trained counsellors, social workers, teachers, and NGO workers, creating a global network of complex trauma-competent professionals who not only serve others with greater resilience but also carry the positive ripple effects of healing into every relationship they touch.
This is the heart of my work:
When helpers heal, entire systems transform.
