Online, wherever you are
OVERCOMING RELATIONSHIP AND CAREER CHALLENGES
Online consultations in English and French. In-person consultations are also available in Paris and Brussels.
THERAPY & COACHING
Obstacles, relationships, decisions, personal balance, expatriation, couples, family, children
1 hr
Project, career change, burnout, conflicts, stagnation
1 hr 30 min
Bicultural couples - Expatriation
1 hr - 1 hr 30 min
Online therapy for expats and bicultural couples
Living abroad is never just about changing your address. Leaving, settling in, returning, or living between several countries shifts your points of reference, roles, and sense of belonging. It can also subtly alter the balance of a relationship.
You can love the life you have built and still feel alone, out of sync, or exhausted. You can form a solid couple and discover that a difference in language, culture, or country of origin ends up influencing every decision: where to live, how to raise children, what place to give to families, how to divide money, work, or sacrifices.
I provide online support to adults and couples facing these difficulties, in French or English, using a brief systemic and strategic approach.
Moving to a new country means losing—at least temporarily—an entire ecosystem: readily available loved ones, familiar routines, a language whose nuances you master, a social or professional standing. What was previously shared among several people may suddenly fall on the couple, or even on a single individual.
The partner then becomes an emotional support, a family anchor, a source of logistical help, and almost the sole witness to daily life. However, no couple is meant to replace an entire village on its own.
In a bicultural couple, other differences can emerge: the way affection is shown, arguments are made, help is asked for, privacy is protected, parents are cared for, and each partner's role is defined. What one partner calls closeness may be experienced as intrusion; what the other calls independence may be perceived as indifference.
Culture matters, but it doesn't explain everything. My job is to distinguish what is due to the cultural context from what belongs to the couple's own dynamics — and then to identify how each person's reactions, despite themselves, maintain the repetition.
FAQ
These sessions may be for you if…
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You live away from your home country and no longer feel fully at home anywhere.
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You are preparing to move abroad, struggling to settle in, or finding the return to your home country unsettling.
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You feel lonely, have lost your sense of direction, or feel constantly worn out by the effort of adapting.
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You are in a bicultural, intercultural, mixed-culture or binational relationship, and the same misunderstandings keep recurring.
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One partner has moved abroad to follow the other and now feels dependent, isolated, or held back professionally.
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Your disagreements concern communication, money, family, religion, roles within the relationship, raising children, or which country to live in.
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Your difficulties are not directly caused by living abroad, but you need your international context to be understood without having to explain everything.
You do not need to identify with the word “expat”. This support is for anyone whose relationships, family life or career span different countries, languages or cultures.
Can we work on the relationship if my partner does not want to attend?
Yes. Both partners do not have to attend sessions for us to begin working on the relationship dynamic.
A systemic approach views a relationship as a pattern of interactions: one person’s response influences the other’s, which in turn reinforces the first. When one person changes how they respond, persist, withdraw, protect themselves or set a boundary, the pattern can no longer unfold in quite the same way.
We can therefore begin with whoever is currently more available, more ready to engage, or simply more motivated to help things change. That person becomes a resource for change—not because they are responsible for the problem, but because they are currently best placed to introduce a shift.
Sessions can take place with both partners or with just one. The aim is never to change the absent partner from a distance or to decide who is in the wrong. It is to identify what keeps the relationship stuck and what the person attending can concretely do differently.
An approach focused on change
The systemic and strategic approach developed by the Palo Alto school goes beyond asking why a problem first arose. It focuses primarily on how the problem works today and how certain attempts to solve it may end up keeping it going.
In sessions, we clarify what triggers difficult moments, how each person responds, what has already been tried, and where a different response could open up possibilities for change. Where appropriate, this work includes practical suggestions to try between sessions.
The aim is not to analyse the relationship endlessly, but to break out of the repetitive cycles that wear it down.
Practical information
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Online sessions, wherever you live.
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In French or English.
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Individual or couple sessions, depending on your situation.
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A focused, confidential format that adapts as the work progresses.
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Occasional in-person appointments may be available in Paris or Brussels.
Do our difficulties have to be directly related to living abroad?
No. You can seek support for relationship conflict, separation, a difficult decision, anxiety, exhaustion or family difficulties that could arise anywhere. International mobility is then an important part of the context, rather than necessarily the cause of the problem.
My partner and I have different native languages. Is that a problem?
Sessions are offered in French or English. When both partners attend, we choose a shared language in which each person can understand, convey nuances and express themselves freely enough to engage in the work.