Dr Anthon Schröder spent his childhood and young adult life in Namibia, in Africa. When he was not at boarding school, he roamed free amongst the endless dunes of the Kalahari farm established by his great grandfather, Hans Hörlein, who chose not to return to Germany after he resigned as first general manager of the Deutsche Diamanten Gesellschaft in Lüdertitz. His grandmother, the only daughter of the Hörleins, married Richard Schröder from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, who likewise did not return to Germany due to the outbreak of WWII and the devastating aftermath of the war. Anthon’s father, Hans Richard, broke the pattern and chose an Afrikaans wife, from South Africa, although his grandparents ensured that he grew up with proper Hamburg German as his first tongue and attended only German schools. Growing up in the Kalahari allowed the young Anthon to concentrate his inquisitive mind on that which most interested him since he could remember; figuring out how living creatures are put together. As animal husbandry was the main business of the farm, he was never short of animal carcasses to dissect and investigate. On his wanderings around the farm he often encountered other interesting specimens, as with the dead tortoise he brought home and dissected in his mother’s kitchen, to the cook’s great consternation, when he was barely five years old. After completing his secondary schooling in Cape Town, Anthon obtained a Bachelor of Science at the University of Stellenbosch, majoring in Chemistry, Bio-Chemistry and Human Physiology. Prompted by one of his professors to study medicine, he enrolled for a M.B.Ch.B at the University of Stellenbosch and graduated in 1988 with a Cum Laude in Internal Medicine. An unfortunate back injury he sustained during his houseman-ship year at Windhoek Central Hospital persuaded him to spend two years as medical officer at Conradie Hospital near Cape Town, which specialised exclusively in the treatment and rehabilitation of spinal cord injuries. This experience stimulated a life long interest in the subject. In 1992 Anthon chose to return to Namibia and opened his own GP Practice in Windhoek. For the next twenty three years he ran this practice with great success, building a client base which included numerous private families, acting as the official doctor for the European Union Commission in Namibia as well as various Embassies and Consulates, acting as the Company Doctor for various businesses, amongst others Meatco Abattoir, Namopower and many Namibian hotels and lodges. His interest in spinal cord injuries motivated him to establish a rehabilitation unit for spinal chord injuries at the Windhoek Central Hospital which he ran pro bono for fourteen years. During this period he regularly assisted with orthopaedic and spinal cord operations. Anthon’s years as general practitioner confronted him with the reality that many of his patients had medical conditions which could not merely be cured by standard medicine. Sought by patients for his outstanding diagnostic ability, he was frustrated when he could find no medical cause for a patient’s symptoms, even after extensive tests by specialists. He grew more and more aware that a number of medical conditions, especially relating to gastro-intestinal conditions, irritable bowl syndrome, spastic colon, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraines, fibrocytis, as well as certain types of asthma and depression, were often caused by the patients’ minds rather than their bodies. Years of treatment with prescribed medicines could lessen the symptoms but seldom cured the cause of the illness. A chance conversation with a colleague introduced him to Milton Erickson Hypnotherapy, which in turn led him to the Milton Erickson Institute of South Africa and its founder, Dr Woltemade Hartman. He forthwith enrolled for a series of courses at MEISA in Pretoria, which also included Ego State Therapy and Somatic Experiencing, and discovered that a new world opened to him. Realising that he finally had the tools at his disposal to help those patients he could never help before, Anthon commenced treating selected interested patients with his new found skills with overwhelmingly positive results. This persuaded him to take the bold decision to scale down his GP Practice in Windhoek and concentrate his efforts on furthering his experience and knowledge both at MEISA in South Africa as well as at the Milton Erickson Institute in Rottweil, Germany. After assisting Dr Hartman on a series of training courses in Germany, he was approached by Dr Bernard Trenkle of the Milton Erickson Institute in Rottweil, Germany, to join his team on an ad hoc basis. This enabled Anthon to combine two life long passions; that of travelling to different places while doing the work he loves. He currently spends his time between Namibia, Hermanus near Cape Town in South Africa, and southern Germany. He is available for consultations as per the attached programme. Consultations can be booked by emailing him directly at dr.anthon@icloud.com. Dr Anthon Schröder is married to his best friend, Lydia Schröder, an architect, writer and photographer, who loves traveling and adventure as much as he does and accompanies him on all his travels.
