Every family goes through difficult life experiences that cause stress and anxiety, which can sometimes burden your relationships more than you’d hoped or anticipated. And family becomes so important when you move countries. Particularly difficult moments for a family might be the arrival of a new child, death of a family member, moving to a new country, or mental health problems of one of the family members to name a few.
International, multilingual and intercultural families
It is not easy raising your children in a country that is different from your country of origin. It is harder to navigate the system to get the best for your child and there is a lot of pressure of how to do it right (like for all parents), but then with the added pressure of raising your child multilingually (and boy, does everyone seem to be an expert on that!). , you may be dealing with issues of raising your child multilingually, and you may feel your child is adapting too much to the local culture, is under stress because you are having to move a lot for work, etc. If you feel theses stresses are becoming too much, and you are worried these are having too strong of an effect on one or more family members, it might be helpful to get some support through counselling.
My approach
My approach to counselling is inclusive, strength-oriented and solution-focussed. While working through the difficulties, we work towards managing them in a more constructive way and identifying potential ways forward for all family members involved.
Some examples of issues that people come to me for:
- Communication difficulties within the family
- Children and adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties
- Separation, divorce, and step-family life
- Issues around maintaining cultural values in the family
- Issues around (cultural) identity and so-called “Third Culture Kids”
- Mental health problems
- Anger management
- Self-harm
- Domestic violence
- Effects of traumatic experiences
- Drug & alcohol misuse
- Families are for me anyone who considers themselves a family, and includes extended families, same-sex couples, single parent families, step families etc.
It is important to note that family counselling does not exclude or act as a substitute for individual counselling. Depending on the particular issues, I sometimes see family members individually, or may refer you on to someone else for (additional) individual therapy.