Obituary for Friedlinde Veronika Meier

born 17.11.1958 died 5.5.2024

My first meeting with Friedlinde Meier was in 2009 at a seminar to introduce Metal Colour Light Therapy, which Marianne Altmaier and I were leading in the Paracelsus Clinic in Unterlengenhardt. Friedlinde showed a direct and deep interest in this new therapy and with great earnestness and joy perceived the therapeutic potential of the coloured glass. At that time she was working as a eurythmy therapist in the special school ‚Burghalde‘ in Unterlengenhardt, where ,thanks to her colleague Thomas Möhlmann she had her first experiences with therapy glasses.

A relatively short time later, both Friedlinde and Thomas joined the first training course in MCLT. In this first group of a dozen students there lived a pioneering spirit, which in the course of the three years of the training intensified into a spirit of colleagueship, research and responsibility for this new impulse. Marianne Altmaier, in spite of health problems accompanied each student with great engagement in fulfilling the yearly projects and especially the work for the graduation. So Marianne Altmaier could recognise that in the course of the training, Friedlinde had developed new faculties of perception in order to grasp the needs of the patients and that she also developed the right intuitions in order to meet these needs.

As Marianne‘s health rapidly declined in 2013, she asked Friedlinde to be her successor in the realm of training, graduate training and research and development of MCLT. Marianne died at the end of November 2013, one week before the presentation of the final work of those doing the training. This was a great test for all and asked for engagement for the future. This applied in a special way to Friedlinde, on whose shoulders a great responsibility lay. New tasks needed to be taken up and she met this with a mixture of uncertainty, decisiveness and courage and she had the feeling that she was accompanied in a new way by Marianne.

In 2014 Friedlinde began her activity as a co-worker for Lichtblick e. V. And gradually took up her new tasks.
The first goal was to cement contact with all other therapists, then to deepen the methods developed by Marianne and through countless contacts and seminars to bring about a new training course in MCLT. This was achieved and carried out from 2015-2018.

In 2019 the third training course began. Due to Corona lockdowns and travel restrictions the situation became very complicated. The majority of the participants came from abroad. Meetings were continually postponed or cancelled and everything needed to be adapted to individual needs and possibilities. In this time Friedlinde struggled with her own health problems, which prevented her realising her intentions. But though hindered, she never lost her devotion and decisiveness. And before she had to step back from the work because of her health, she accompanied a new group of students in their first module in the summer of 2023.

In every possible situation Friedlinde cared for the connection of MCLT to the Medical Section and its sub-sections. Together with others she presented MCLT in medical or Curative Education conferences.

She was also the representative of our work in the realm of Art therapy and IArte: a context which until then was a foreign world for her. With time she succeeded in gaining a recognised position and made important human connections, which was very much on her heart.

With deep thanks and in deep connection,

for the Executive of Lichtblick and the community of the MCL Therapists

Lucien Turci