Therapy for English speaking ex-pats in the Netherlands

Moving to the Netherlands from the United States has brought about so many changes: from lifestyle, language, and culture,  to what your options are at the grocery store. 

The feelings that have come on the heels of these changes have been unexpected: you are excited to be here…and yet, you also feel a deep sense of loss and loneliness. 

While you’re grateful to have all these new, enriching experiences overseas, you can’t help but think about what you’re also missing out on back home:

• The milestones (graduations, parents’ retirement, first steps), but also the daily life: even as something as simple as your nephew’s soccer tournament gives you FOMO
• Life updates from your best friend over brunch: the guy she’s seeing and the most recent work drama
• American traditions like Thanksgiving and complaining about fireworks during the Fourth of July
• Even things you dreaded in the US, like going to the DMV – you miss knowing what to expect and how things run

Texting, email, and FaceTime calls with your loved ones hold you over, but they aren’t the same. 

And your feelings of loneliness and homesickness sometimes make you feel guilty on top of it all – everyone romanticizes the experience of moving to Europe and comments on how lucky you are, and how brave you are, and how they wish they had your guts and your life – and yet, here you are “complaining.” 

Cringing, you stuff these feelings down so as not to come across as ungrateful, but the loneliness has gotten to a point you can no longer ignore. You want to feel like the Netherlands is now your home (because it is).

Put simply: you’re a human who needs a community.

The thing is, you’re not sure how to feel more at home and less like a fish out of water.

And certain expat-specific experiences make integration more difficult than you expected…

• Overseas, you are often seen as “the American”, instead of your individual self. If you’re honest, you don’t always appreciate the assumptions or stereotypes that come along with this label (and sometimes you’re downright offended).
• The experience of being a minority, perhaps for the first time, makes you feel a little vulnerable.
• Certain behaviors you would expect in the United States are seen as cultural differences overseas – personal space bubbles aren’t a thing, and strangers give you the weirdest looks when you smile at them in a store!
• The language and cultural barriers make you feel a bit like a little kid who doesn’t get the adults’ jokes and pop-cultural references.

Even when you explain your feelings as an expat to other people who have never left their home country, many people accidentally minimize your feelings (“But you chose to move!”).

They don’t always understand the experience…

• The simultaneous hope and grief of leaving the US (which probably started a long time before you even left!).
• The cultural whiplash of getting to a new place and realizing how many of your beliefs and behaviors are distinctly American.
• Eventually, feeling not-as-American as you once did, but also, not quite like a local.

That’s where I come in.

I know about the challenges of being an expat – because I am one.

I can support you in putting the foundations in place so that you can adjust well to your new life in the Netherlands and ultimately make long-term happiness, fulfillment, and your longevity as an expat much more likely.

During our work together, we’ll explore how your identity and sense of self are shifting and evolving as you live your life in another country.

As we do this, you’ll start to feel more comfortable doing two things at the same time:

1. Give yourself permission to keep the “American” parts you like about yourself and want to maintain, regardless of your location (like smiling at strangers in a store and getting weird looks!).
2. Be flexible in adding in some Dutch-inspired behaviors and lifestyle changes (like more work-life balance and a focus on community).

This permission and flexibility will start to create natural changes to your life in the Netherlands: you will start to feel more at home.

For example, you’ll…

• Start to trust yourself enough to put yourself out there: meet new friends, talk to your kid’s teachers, or advocate for yourself to your Dutch boss.
• Become more comfortable with the idea of acting differently with your long-time American friends vs. with your new Dutch friends – without it feeling fake, forced, or inauthentic.
• Keep your Thanksgiving celebration alive, but also develop new traditions for celebrating King’s Day.

These changes will support you in both finding your identity as an expat and feel like you have established roots again.

As your therapist, I will help you build a community in the Netherlands that allows you to integrate your old culture with the Dutch way of life.

Contact me to schedule your first session.