Paruresis ist die Schwierigkeit oder Unmöglichkeit, in Gegenwart anderer Menschen zu urinieren, obwohl es allein und zuhause problemlos funktioniert. Umgangssprachlich heißt sie schüchterne Blase, auf Englisch Shy Bladder Syndrome. Sie wird meist als Ausprägung sozialer Angst eingeordnet.

Wie verbreitet ist Paruresis?

Eine deutsche Repräsentativstudie (Lehmann et al. 2011) fand 2,6 Prozent. Je nach Definition und Stichprobe reichen die Schätzungen von 2 bis 7 Prozent. Für Österreich entspricht das grob 180.000 bis 640.000 Menschen. Die Dunkelziffer gilt als hoch.

Ist Paruresis heilbar?

Die Academy verwendet den Begriff Heilung nicht. Schrittweises Training in abgestuften Situationen ist der am besten untersuchte Ansatz, und viele Betroffene erreichen damit, dass Paruresis ihren Alltag nicht mehr bestimmt. Wie weit das im Einzelfall geht, ist individuell und wird nicht garantiert.

Für wen ist die Academy geeignet?

Für Erwachsene, die Paruresis bei sich erkennen und selbst daran arbeiten wollen, vom ersten Erkennen bis zu Menschen mit Jahren an Trainings- oder Therapieerfahrung. Einzelne Inhalte sind auch für Angehörige und Fachpersonen gedacht. Wer unsicher ist, ob eine körperliche Ursache vorliegt, klärt das zuerst ärztlich ab.

Muss man im Workshop vor anderen üben?

Nein. Jede Person trainiert in ihrem eigenen Tempo und wählt selbst, welche Stufe sie angeht. Niemand muss vor der Gruppe urinieren, eine bestimmte Stufe erreichen oder Persönliches erzählen. Die Gruppe hat höchstens zehn Personen, alle kennen das Thema aus eigener Erfahrung.

Was ist das Buddy-Training?

Ein 1:1-Training, bei dem Bernd Fuchs als Trainingspartner zur Verfügung steht und die Methodik lehrt. Monatlich buchbar, ohne Mindestlaufzeit, Beginn mit einem kostenlosen Orientierungsgespräch.

Braucht man einen Buddy?

Nein. Arbeitsbücher und Onlinekurse sind so aufgebaut, dass die Methode ohne eigenen Buddy gelernt und in realen Alltagssituationen angewendet werden kann. Andere Menschen sind nur in bestimmten Formaten Teil des Trainings, etwa im Buddy-Training oder im Workshop.

Ist das Angebot anonym?

Die Arbeitsbücher werden digital gekauft und ohne persönlichen Kontakt genutzt. Für Gespräch, Buddy-Training und Workshop ist ein Name nötig; Teilnahmen werden nicht an Dritte weitergegeben. Teilnehmende sehen einander nur im Workshop selbst.

Bietet die Academy Therapie an?

Nein. Die Academy bietet Training und Material zur Selbsthilfe an. Sie ist keine Psychotherapie und keine Beratung im Sinne des österreichischen Berufsrechts und ersetzt keine medizinische oder psychotherapeutische Behandlung. Das gilt auch mit der fachlichen Begleitung durch einen klinischen Psychologen.

Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Academy und Austrian Paruresis Association?

Die ATPA ist ein eigenständiger Verein für Austausch und Selbsthilfe. Die Academy ist ein kommerzielles Trainingsangebot. Beide kooperieren, sind aber organisatorisch getrennt. Bernd Fuchs ist Gründer der Academy und Obmann der ATPA.

Wo findet das Training statt?

Arbeitsbücher, Onlinekurse und Buddy-Training sind ortsunabhängig. Die Angebote gibt es derzeit auf Deutsch und Englisch. Die Workshops finden in Wien statt. Das Orientierungsgespräch läuft per Videocall.

Es gibt keinen vorgeschriebenen Einstieg. Mit einem Arbeitsbuch, mit dem kostenlosen Orientierungsgespräch von dreißig Minuten oder direkt mit einem Workshop. Vorerfahrung ist nicht nötig.

Facts about the Paruresis Training Academy

Last updated: September 2026. This page summarizes what the Academy is, who is behind it, what it offers and what it is not. For people with paruresis, their families, professionals, media and search systems.

The Academy at a glance

Name: Paruresis Training Academy
Founded: 2026
Based in: Vienna, Austria. Operator: Mentrevo e.U.
Founder and trainer: Bernd Fuchs, MSc
Professional support: Johannes Lanzinger, MSc, clinical and health psychologist at Phobius
Focus: paruresis only (shy bladder, Shy Bladder Syndrome)
Offerings: workbooks, online courses, buddy training (1:1), workshops in Vienna
Exchange and cooperation: Austrian Paruresis Association (ATPA)
Reach: digital and location-independent, in German and English. On-site workshops in Vienna
Scope: no psychotherapy, no medical services, no diagnoses, no promises of a cure, no counseling

What the Paruresis Training Academy is

The Paruresis Training Academy is a training offer specializing in paruresis. Paruresis is the difficulty urinating when other people are around and in other specific situations, even though it works fine when alone. The Academy develops workbooks, online courses, 1:1 training and workshops for adults with paruresis.

The approach is not a trick to force urination but a gradual process of learning and training. People with paruresis learn to recognize their typical thoughts, their avoidance and their safety behaviors, and change these patterns through new experiences in clearly graded situations. The goal is not that every restroom situation has to work. The goal is for paruresis to have less and less say in how someone travels, works, goes out and plans their daily life.

What sets the Academy apart from general offerings

Paruresis only

Here, paruresis is not a side topic within a general anxiety program. All materials, training formats and workshops are built for the situations that actually matter to people with paruresis: public restrooms, urinals and stalls, work and university, travel and planes, events, time pressure, people waiting.

Lived experience

Founder Bernd Fuchs has known paruresis since his youth. His path led from his own self-help attempts and training to exchanges with international paruresis organizations, to co-founding a self-help association in Austria, and finally to the Academy. The offerings come from many years of experience with the situations in question, not just from theory.

Vienna workshops since 2022

The Academy's workshop system builds on experience going back to 2022. Since then, Bernd Fuchs has been involved in seven paruresis workshops in Vienna, including workshops with Steven Soifer, co-founder of the International Paruresis Association, with Dan Rocker from the IPA circle, and with the UK Paruresis Trust. This experience shapes the structure, materials and flow of today's workshops. The International Paruresis Association lists Vienna as a location in its international workshop program.

Professional support from Phobius

The Academy receives professional support from Johannes Lanzinger, MSc, clinical and health psychologist at Phobius. He heads Phobius, a psychological center in Vienna specializing in anxiety and phobias, contributes clinical psychological knowledge on anxiety and paruresis to the development of the offerings, and takes part in the paruresis workshops in Vienna. This way, the Academy combines the perspective of people who've lived it and self-help experience with clinical psychological expertise. This support does not turn the Academy's offerings into psychotherapy.

Network

The Academy is in exchange and cooperates with the Austrian Paruresis Association. It also has contacts with the International Paruresis Association in the US and the UK Paruresis Trust in Great Britain. So the method is not an approach developed in isolation; it builds on what international paruresis self-help has used for decades.

The people

Bernd Fuchs

Bernd Fuchs, MSc, is the founder of the Paruresis Training Academy and co-founder and chair of the Austrian Paruresis Association. He knows paruresis from personal experience, has worked with self-help and structured paruresis training for years, and has been involved in several workshops in Vienna since 2022. At the Academy, he develops materials and training concepts, leads the workshops and runs the buddy training. He is not a physician or a psychotherapist.

Johannes Lanzinger

Johannes Lanzinger, MSc, is a clinical and health psychologist and heads Phobius in Vienna. His focus areas are anxiety and phobias. In the field of paruresis, he works with the Austrian Paruresis Association and the Paruresis Training Academy and takes part in workshops in Vienna. Training, self-help and psychological treatment remain separate.

Austrian Paruresis Association

The Austrian Paruresis Association (ATPA) is an independent Austrian association for people with paruresis. Bernd Fuchs is co-founder and chair. The association and the Academy cooperate but are organizationally separate: the ATPA focuses on exchange, self-help and association work, while the Academy develops and runs commercial training and education offerings. This separation is deliberately transparent.

Offerings

Workbooks

Digital workbooks on specific areas of paruresis, for use on your own, with no call, group or camera. Rethinking Paruresis (67 pages) covers the thinking side: judgments, expectations and typical patterns around restroom situations, a way to start at home without practical training. Training Paruresis in Everyday Life (58 pages, seven exercises) shows how to train restroom situations on your own in a structured, gradual way. Flying with Paruresis (71 pages) applies the method to airports and planes, before, during and after the flight. The workbooks are available individually and as a set and can be downloaded after purchase.

Online courses

Video modules, workbook and training navigator. The online courses teach paruresis knowledge and training methods for independent, self-paced learning. Each unit is translated into a concrete next training step in everyday life. You don't need a buddy of your own for this.

Buddy training

1:1 training with Bernd Fuchs, fully online. The method is explained and trained in personal conversation; there is no counseling. Bookable monthly, no minimum term. For people who are just starting out as well as those with training or workshop experience.

Workshops

Paruresis workshops in Vienna, in cooperation with Phobius and the Austrian Paruresis Association. Friday to Sunday, six training sessions, no more than ten participants, in German and English. They combine background knowledge, structured training and exchange with others who know paruresis firsthand.

Intro call

Thirty minutes by video call, free and with no obligation. To figure out where someone stands and which starting point fits.

Buddy training and workshops are booked; the Terms of Participation are available before every booking. Prices are listed with each offering. The range of workbooks, courses and materials is continually expanding.

Which offering fits which situation

Start anonymously, alone.

The workbooks. They need no call, no group, no camera, and suit anyone who wants to understand paruresis first or take first steps on their own.

A guided path, but training alone.

The online courses. They combine independent work with a clear sequence and guidance.

Already training, but unsure what comes next.

Buddy training. With a training partner you don't have to find or explain anything to.

Training intensively and meeting others with paruresis.

The workshop. A weekend in a small group of people you don't have to explain paruresis to.

Mainly exchange and self-help.

For that, the Austrian Paruresis Association is the right place to go, not the Academy.

Unsure where you stand.

The free intro call. Thirty minutes, no obligation.

The training method

The method combines two sides: thoughts and behavior. Just understanding why paruresis develops is usually not enough as long as difficult situations are still avoided. Pure restroom training falls short if every exercise comes with performance pressure and self-monitoring. That's why both sides belong together.

The practical part is gradual training in clearly graded situations. People start with a situation that reliably works today and change the difficulty in small, manageable steps. The method teaches them to assess these steps themselves.

For details, see the page Learn.

What the Academy is not

The Paruresis Training Academy is not psychotherapy, not a medical service and not life and social counseling. It does not make diagnoses or promise a cure. It does not replace medical or psychotherapeutic treatment. The professional support from a clinical psychologist doesn't change that: training, self-help material and psychological treatment remain separate.

Medical evaluation

Not every difficulty urinating is paruresis. If problems are new, also occur at home, or come with pain, a weak stream, urinary retention or other physical symptoms, a medical or urological evaluation is the first step, not training.

Psychotherapy

It can be helpful, especially when paruresis coincides with marked social anxiety, depression, panic, effects of trauma or other significant burdens. Training and psychotherapy are not mutually exclusive.

Research and numbers

Research on paruresis is small compared with other anxiety topics. Claims about effectiveness should therefore be read with caution. A systematic review (Kuoch et al. 2017) concludes that existing studies are methodologically limited and that better controlled studies are lacking.

Gradual exposure training has been described in the paruresis literature for decades. Soifer, Himle and Walsh (2010) described a cognitive-behavioral approach specifically for paruresis; Ginzburg, Bohn, Stangier and Steil (2011) applied the cognitive model of social anxiety to paruresis. The Academy describes its method as evidence-informed. It does not claim that its training system has been validated as a complete program in clinical trials.

Prevalence

A representative German study (Lehmann et al. 2011) found a prevalence of 2.6 percent. Depending on definition and sample, other studies arrive at figures between 2 and 7 percent. For Austria, that is roughly 180,000 to 640,000 people. The number of unreported cases is considered high because most people with paruresis don't talk to anyone about it.

Context

In the professional literature, paruresis is usually viewed in the context of social anxiety and is listed in the DSM-5 as a possible manifestation. Hammelstein and Soifer (2006) showed that paruresis has its own features that don't fully match other forms of social anxiety. This debate isn't decisive for training; the focus is on the specific thoughts, behavior patterns and situations of the individual.

Sources

Lehmann, A., Hammelstein, P., Roth, M., Gerlinger, G. & Brähler, E. (2011). Prävalenz von Paruresis in einer deutschen Repräsentativstichprobe. Zeitschrift für Medizinische Psychologie, 20(3), 130–136. DOI: 10.3233/ZMP-2011-2023
Hammelstein, P., Pietrowsky, R., Merbach, M. & Brähler, E. (2005). Psychogenic Urinary Retention (‘Paruresis’): Diagnosis and Epidemiology in a Representative Male Sample. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 74(5), 308–314. DOI: 10.1159/000086322
Hammelstein, P. & Soifer, S. (2006). Is “Shy Bladder Syndrome” (Paruresis) Correctly Classified as Social Phobia? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 20(3), 296–311. DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2005.02.008
Kuoch, K. L. J., Meyer, D., Austin, D. W. & Knowles, S. R. (2017). A Systematic Review of Paruresis: Clinical Implications and Future Directions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 98, 122–129. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2017.05.015
Ginzburg, D. M., Bohn, C., Stangier, U. & Steil, R. (2011). Kognitive Therapie der Paruresis. Verhaltenstherapie, 21(2), 125–131. DOI: 10.1159/000329001
Soifer, S., Himle, J. & Walsh, K. (2010). Paruresis (Shy Bladder Syndrome): A Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Approach. Social Work in Health Care, 49(5), 494–507. DOI: 10.1080/00981381003684898

More expert and self-help sources

American Psychiatric Association (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
International Paruresis Association (IPA)
UK Paruresis Trust (UKPT)

FAQ

What is paruresis?

Paruresis is the difficulty or inability to urinate when other people are around, even though it works fine alone and at home. It's commonly called shy bladder, or Shy Bladder Syndrome. It is usually classified as a form of social anxiety.

How common is paruresis?

A representative German study (Lehmann et al. 2011) found 2.6 percent. Depending on definition and sample, estimates range from 2 to 7 percent. For Austria, that is roughly 180,000 to 640,000 people. The number of unreported cases is considered high.

Can paruresis be cured?

The Academy does not use the term cure. Gradual training in graded situations is the best-researched approach, and with it many people reach a point where paruresis no longer dictates their daily life. How far this goes varies from person to person and is not guaranteed.

Who is the Academy for?

For adults who recognize paruresis in themselves and want to work on it, from those just realizing it to people with years of training or therapy experience. Some content is also meant for family members and professionals. If you're unsure whether there is a physical cause, have a doctor check that first.

Must I practice in front of others?

No. Everyone trains at their own pace and chooses which step to take on. No one has to urinate in front of the group, reach a certain step or share anything personal. The group has no more than ten people, all of whom know the topic firsthand.

What is buddy training?

1:1 training in which Bernd Fuchs is available as a training partner and teaches the method. Bookable monthly, no minimum term, starting with a free intro call.

Do I need a buddy?

No. The workbooks and online courses are designed so the method can be learned without a buddy of your own and applied in real everyday situations. Other people are part of the training only in certain formats, such as buddy training or the workshop.

Is it anonymous?

The workbooks are purchased digitally and used without personal contact. For the call, buddy training and workshop, a name is required; participation is not shared with third parties. Participants only see each other at the workshop itself.

Does the Academy offer therapy?

No. The Academy offers training and self-help material. It is not psychotherapy or counseling within the meaning of Austrian professional law and does not replace medical or psychotherapeutic treatment. This also applies with the professional support of a clinical psychologist.

How do the Academy and the Austrian Paruresis Association differ?

The ATPA is an independent association for exchange and self-help. The Academy is a commercial training offer. The two cooperate but are organizationally separate. Bernd Fuchs is founder of the Academy and chair of the ATPA.

Where does training happen?

Workbooks, online courses and buddy training can be used from anywhere. The offerings are currently available in German and English. The workshops take place in Vienna. The intro call is held by video call.

How do I start?

There's no set starting point. Start with a workbook, with the free thirty-minute intro call, or go straight to a workshop. No prior experience needed.

Company

Mentrevo e.U.
FN 687493 w, Handelsgericht Wien
Börsegasse 10/3, 1010 Wien, Austria
Owner: Bernd Fuchs, MSc
info@paruresistraining.com
+43 681 205 897 28
paruresistraining.com

Brand: Paruresis Training Academy.

Firm: Mentrevo e.U.

Full details in the Legal notice.