How It's Complicated works
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Find your therapistUse our free matching service for personal recommendations, or browse our network of 2,500+ therapists yourself.
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Create your free accountSign up in under 2 minutes. All you need is an email and a password, and you're ready to go.
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Start therapyReach out to your therapist and book your first session within 24 hours. Online or in person, in 60+ languages.
Learn more about expat life
Therapy for expats supports people living abroad with the emotional side of building a life in a new country. Relocation brings obvious practical upheaval, but the harder part is often less visible: the loss of familiar networks, the effort of adapting to a different culture, and the sense of not fully belonging in either your new home or your old one. Expat life can be exciting and isolating at once. Working with an expat therapist, someone who understands displacement, cultural adjustment, and identity, gives you a space to make sense of that experience with a person who gets the context without needing it explained.
You don't need a crisis to seek support as an expat. Moving abroad reshapes almost everything, and many people underestimate the emotional toll until they are in it. You might find therapy helpful if you:
- Feel isolated or lonely, even when your practical life abroad is going well
- Are struggling to adjust to a new culture, language, or way of working
- Notice low mood, anxiety, or homesickness that isn't easing with time
- Feel caught between two identities, or unsure where home is anymore
- Are managing relationship strain that the move has created or exposed
- Moved for a partner's job or study and feel unmoored in your own life
- Miss the support network you had, and haven't rebuilt one yet
Several approaches suit the challenges of expat life, and the right fit depends on what you're finding hardest.
- Counselling offers space to talk through homesickness, isolation, and the practical strain of settling in, at your own pace. It suits people who want support without a clinical focus.
- Coaching is forward-looking and practical, helping you set goals, rebuild routines, and take active steps to establish yourself in a new place.
- CBT: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps with the anxious or low-mood thinking patterns that adjustment can trigger, giving you concrete tools to manage them.
- Systemic therapy looks at your relationships and wider context, useful when a move has strained a partnership or reshaped family dynamics.
- Person-centred approach follows your own pace and priorities, helpful when you're working out questions of identity and belonging without a fixed agenda.
It's Complicated is a therapist-founded mental health platform connecting clients with verified practitioners across Europe and globally, in over 60 languages. We work with over 2,500 vetted therapists, with in-person availability in Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, Vienna, and other major cities, alongside online sessions worldwide. It's Complicated is free to use, and you pay your chosen therapist directly at rates they set.
Finding an expat therapist can be its own version of the problem, searching for support in a place where you don't yet know the system or the language. Our matching service is built to remove that friction. You complete a short survey, our psychologists combine data-driven insights with human judgement to identify the right therapists for your situation, and you choose from a shortlist of strong candidates. Many of our therapists work online and across languages, so you can find someone who fits regardless of where you've landed. You can also browse our directory directly if you'd prefer to choose yourself.
Get matched with a therapist who specialises in expat life, or browse the directory to choose yourself.
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