About Us

We’re two friends brought together by a shared love of board sports and a passion for helping people thrive, both mentally and physically. After three years of wakeboarding together in our student town of Groningen (The Netherlands), we took a spontaneous snowboarding trip to the French Alps.

Somewhere between endless runs and one or the other aperol, we realized we were both dreaming about the same idea.... Combining our love for the mountains and board sports with our backgrounds in psychology and medicine!

This realization was the beginning of the so far beautiful journey of Mind over Mountain.

Meet Vanessa

Vanessa is a medical doctor, originally from Germany, who studied medicine in the Netherlands.

After working in cardiology and psychiatry, she discovered her true passion: taking a holistic approach to treating patients, including their mind, body, and systemic influences.

During her clinical years in child psychiatry, alongside research and training in medical hypnotherapy, Vanessa developed expertise in treating emotional dysregulation and trauma-related disorders—drawing from depth psychology, CBT, trauma therapy, and systemic methods. Next to this she became a certified expert in microbiome therapy and functional medicine.

The pandemic deepened her curiosity. She began questioning narratives, diving into research on natural tools for resilience and preventive measures to avoid disease in the first place.

This year, she will leave the clinic behind to create a new path. One piece of that puzzle is this passion project: Mind over Mountain, a space where joy, health, nature, and self-leadership meet.

For those seeking more.
For anyone ready to climb their own mountain…with the best health their body and mind can reach.

Meet Nanon

Nanon is a psychologist specialized in the area of behavior change. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the Netherlands, whereafter she returned back to her home country, Germany, where she worked with underage refugees in an initial reception centre.

After quitting her job, she realized she wanted to combine her professional passion with her love for boardsports, which sparked the idea for Mind over Mountain. Nanon believes that the key for a happy and healthy life is systemic but can be positively influenced by meaningful behavior change. Still, changing behavior is always easier said than done, it remains one of the biggest challenges we face as humans. Luckily, there’s an entire field dedicated to this very challenge: Behavioral Science.

Nanon’s here to make the science stick, in a way that’s practical, down-to-earth, and maybe even a little fun.