Jutta Leth

MedR. Dr. med. Jutta Leth is a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine and a registered client-centred psychotherapist at JUVENIS Medical Center in central Vienna. She has practised medicine for around forty years, and holds the Austrian honorary title of Medizinalrat, conferred in 2022.

Both a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist — and why that matters Most patients meet these as two separate people. A psychiatrist is a physician who can diagnose psychiatric illness and prescribe medication; a psychotherapist provides talking therapy and, under Austrian law, cannot prescribe. Dr. Leth is formally qualified as both: a board-certified specialist since 2001, and on the Austrian Register of Psychotherapists since 1997.

As she describes it, many psychiatric conditions show the best evidence of recovery when both approaches are combined, particularly at the start of treatment — and JUVENIS is organised so that psychotherapists and psychiatric specialists work closely together whenever a patient wants that.

Education and training Dr. Leth received her doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1986. She trained as a client-centred psychotherapist with the ÖGWG between 1991 and 1996 and was entered in the Austrian Register of Psychotherapists in 1997. She completed her specialist training in psychiatry at Otto Wagner Hospital from 1996 to 2001, qualifying as a specialist in Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine in 2001.

She has since added the Austrian Medical Chamber's diploma as a physician for psychosocial, psychosomatic and psychotherapeutic medicine (2002), its diploma in geriatrics and palliative medicine (2006), its diploma in environmental medicine (2007), and has held its continuing medical education diploma since 2006. In 2013 she completed trauma therapy training in EMDR and Brainspotting.

Career Dr. Leth has been a cooperating physician at JUVENIS since 2012. Until 2025 she was ward-leading senior physician at the Addiction Centre of Klinik Penzing. In September 2022 she was awarded the title of Medizinalrat.

Clinical focus

• Anxiety disorders, including a disorder-specific client-centred treatment programme for anxiety
• Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders, including somatisation disorders
• Trauma sequelae disorders
• Affective disorders
• Psychoses
• Obsessive-compulsive disorders
• Personality development disorders
• Sleep disorders
• Addiction — alcohol and prescription medication — and abstinence support. She does not provide opioid substitution therapy
• Case management in complex cases where physical and psychiatric illness occur together

What client-centred psychotherapy actually is Client-centred — or person-centred — psychotherapy was developed by Carl Rogers, who wrote: "When I accept myself as I am, I change." Dr. Leth's account of it is that what makes therapy work is the relationship the therapist offers, in a space where anything can be thought and said without social consequence.

The therapist's role is to accompany rather than direct: the client remains the expert on their own life. What makes the relationship therapeutic is empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence — genuine understanding, active listening, openness and acceptance. The quality of that working alliance is, in her view, decisive for the outcome.

The aim is to reduce the pressure a person is under, and to help them understand themselves better and so become more autonomous — better able to handle what is difficult. Both acute and long-standing psychological problems respond to it, because it develops the personality as a whole rather than treating a symptom.

She is also clear about what it asks of a patient: therapy only works if a person is genuinely willing to engage with themselves, including feelings that are uncomfortable to face. It is also valuable as self-exploration in its own right, quite apart from any diagnosed condition.

Complex cases One of her stated focus areas is case management where physical and psychiatric illness occur together — a patient with a chronic medical condition who is also depressed, or whose physical symptoms have no organic explanation. These are the cases that fall between specialties and get passed around. Being both a physician and a psychotherapist, in a centre with internal medicine, cardiology, radiology and dermatology under one roof, is exactly the position from which they can be held together.

Languages Dr. Leth treats patients in German and English.

Her approach Asked what attractiveness means to her, she describes a balance between body and soul at every stage of life, and a kind of beauty not tied to youth or flawlessness. Authenticity, humour, and meeting life's difficulties openly and with confidence are, in her view, what make a person attractive.