Henrike Wiemer had her first psychiatric inpatient treatment in Germany in 1998, at the age of 14. Multiple institutionalized treatments and psychiatric assessments followed until Henrike was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 18.
Henrike experienced  only few negative symptoms during psychotic episodes, and she managed to finish high-school (German Abitur) in 2005. In 2006, Henrike moved to Switzerland and started studying German Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Zürich. Because of several hospitalizations, it took her 10 years to obtain her Bachelor’s degree with a BA thesis about auditory hallucinations in patients with dissociative symptoms.
Henrike has always been interested in sharing her experience of schizophreniaand in exploiting her experience tocontribute to advanced qualitative schizophrenia research. In 2016, she did an internship as an “expert by experience” at the Sanatorium Kilchberg and since 2019 she has been involved with the project ‘Let’s talk about it! But how?’ To earn a living, Henrike has been working as a self-employed German teacher since 2017.