When Helm Stierlin was appointed to the medical faculty of the University Hospital of the Ruprechts-Karls-University of Heidelberg in 1974, he founded an institute with a family therapy focus called "Basic Psychoanalytic Research and Family Therapy". Helm Stierlin's professorship was Germany's first and, at that time, only professorship for family therapy located at a university hospital. After Helm Stierlin's retirement in 1991, Manfred Cierpka was appointed his successor in 1997. The institute was given the name "Psychosomatic Cooperative Research and Family Therapy" and moved to its current location at Bergheimer Str. 54, which previously housed the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Heidelberg. The family therapy focus continued and focused on supporting families with children between the ages of 0 and 3. During this period, the spectrum of family therapy also expanded to include preventive approaches, e.g., in the area of early help. At the beginning of 2005, the Research Center for Psychotherapy (FOST, formerly located in Stuttgart) was affiliated with the Institute, headed by Hans Kordy until 2013 and currently by Stephanie Bauer.

After the retirement of Manfred Cierpka in September 2015, the successful work of the institute was to be continued under the name "Psychosocial Prevention". In January 2016, Svenja Taubner took over the chair of the same name and is currently expanding the research and therapy offers for adolescents with externalizing problems and their families as well as families with high psychosocial stress. Under the new leadership, the family therapy approach is complemented by mentalization-based concepts in prevention and intervention.