Moving to the Netherlands & Living Abroad

Moving to the Netherlands can be exciting and disorienting at the same time. Even when the move is something you chose and wanted, adjusting to a new culture, language, community, school system, or way of life can affect your relationships and your sense of who—and where—you are.

Therapy can offer space for both what you're building here and what you've left behind.

Building a Life in the Netherlands

Adjusting to a new country involves much more than figuring out the practical pieces. It can change family roles, relationships, careers, parenting, friendships, and your sense of belonging.

Therapy can help with:

• Culture shock, homesickness, and isolation

• Identity and belonging

• Building friendships and community

• Career or role changes after relocation

• Relationship stress when partners adjust differently

• Parenting and raising children across cultures

• Children adjusting to new schools, languages, and friendships

• Living far from extended family and support systems

• Grief for people, places, traditions, and the life you left behind

• Questions about whether—and where—you want to stay long term

You don't have to regret your move to struggle with parts of it. You can be grateful to be here and still miss home.

Families Across Countries & Cultures

International moves can reshape an entire family system. Partners may experience the transition differently. Children may adapt faster—or struggle in ways their parents didn't expect. Relationships with family back home can also change with distance.

For multicultural and immigrant families, there may be additional questions about language, identity, traditions, parenting, and what it means to belong to more than one place or culture.

Therapy provides space to explore those changes and find ways of building a life in the Netherlands that feels like your own.

My Approach

I approach international transitions from a trauma-informed, relational, and culturally curious perspective, incorporating ACT, CBT, Narrative Therapy, mindfulness, and somatic approaches.

As an American now living in the Netherlands, I also understand personally that building a life in another country can hold excitement, loss, freedom, frustration, and uncertainty at the same time.

You can build a home somewhere new without having to stop missing where you've been.