Therapy, counselling and/or coaching
for English-speaking expats in NL
- Utrecht city-centre private practice
- For adult individuals and couples
- Focused, effective personal guidance and
psycho-emotional care - Warmly empathic, non-judgmental understanding
- No waiting list — appointment within 1 to 2 weeks
- Daytime sessions Monday to Thursday
- Evening sessions Monday to Thursday for clients who work or study in the daytime
What guidance do you need?
At various stages in life, for various reasons, everyone struggles with troublesome thoughts, emotions and/or behaviours, with tough challenges, or with difficult interactions or relationships. People go into coaching, counselling or therapy not just because they have a problem (who doesn’t these days?) but usually because they have been struggling with the same – seemingly unsolvable – problem for too long without finding a way to overcome it. They therefore feel stuck, become demoralised and need external guidance. It can happen to anyone, but when you’re living and working as an expat in a country with a culture that isn’t always easy to understand and assimilate into, the chances of getting seriously demoralised increase.
As an expat myself, who’s lived and worked in the Netherlands for over 40 years, I know how difficult it can be to fit in here, to feel that you belong and to establish meaningful, fulfilling relationships with ‘the natives’: the Dutch. The essence of ExpatCare4U is my warmly empathic listening and understanding, and my supportive guidance through the challenges of adapting, adjusting and finding successful coping strategies.
The work we do together may also include some necessary healing of old emotional wounds and some positive reframing of old negative assumptions about yourself. You’re not judged by me but empathised with as an equal, as a fellow traveller through life’s challenges. In your struggle with your current problem(s), you are understood on your own terms, as you wish to be understood. The key question we address together is how you can help yourself, so that you can achieve your personal goals in your own special way, at your own tempo, using your own internal and external resources.
What care is provided?
Individual therapy, counselling and/or coaching
In individual face-to-face or online (Zoom) sessions, we focus on your present core problem(s), as well as on your concerns for the future. Our exchanges are based on an empathic working alliance of mutual trust that stimulates personal insight, healing and growth. In each session, the work is focused and goal-oriented, so that the process of change can be as effective as possible.
Relationship therapy and counselling for couples
In couple sessions we focus on the dynamics of interactions between the love partners and how, when ‘triggered’, they tend to get stuck in negative cycles of reactivity. The therapist/counsellor acts as an impartial witness, mediator and process guide who holds up a clear mirror to the partners, enabling and encouraging them to understand how they break their mutual empathetic connection and what they can do to repair it by being curious about and empathising with each other’s core emotions and unmet attachment needs. This is the key to developing healthy and effective communication. If this eventually proves impossible, we may have to focus on the painful process of separating, though hopefully in a way that is least stressful and wounding to all concerned, especially your child or children.