Psychological support to staff and families in the UN, EU, humanitarian systems, diplomatic services and the Expat world.
If you are experiencing emotional distress, living through a crisis or feel isolated and alone, then counselling and therapy offers you professional support to help you recover and regain you balance.
It can be a daunting to start counselling or therapy and it is hard work at times, but the process has the potential of both managing a specific situation short term and of longer-term personal transformation. All with the aim for you to feel more aligned with yourself and live an authentic and full life.
Online counselling and therapy for adults and adolescents
Many struggle with anxiety and depression because of pressures and stress at work or in school that over time can lead to lead to burnout. Uncertainties in our lives in an unstable world and feeling isolated and disconnected takes a toll on our wellbeing and mental health.
Emotional difficulties can also be triggered by sudden traumatic events, bereavement, difficult intimate relationships or by existential questions around our personal growth, finding meaning and navigating life phases.
Counselling and therapy offer a confidential, empathetic and non-judgmental space for you to think together with me about how best to manage your current situation, regain your balance and gain a better understanding of behaviours and patterns - often life long - that may not work for you anymore.
How can I help?
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For expats multiple posting abroad can take its toll on family life with regular uprooting and adjustment to new social settings, not least for children trying to navigate multiple cultures and changing social relationships. The accompanying spouse or partner can feel “put on pause” professionally because of work permit restrictions etc. Being a world citizen is a formidable skill and a gift for expat families and children, but the costs and strains should not be ignored. The flip side needs to carefully be thought about and cared for.
Having previously worked 15 years in the field as regional staff counsellor and family advisor in the diplomatic services and the UN system I have an in-depth understanding of the challenges facing expats and humanitarian aid workers and the systems they operate in. I also have my own experience from multiple postings across the world.
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Humanitarian Aid workers mostly work in non-family duty stations, separated from their family and social network. Often they are exposed to high-risk fragile environments while faced with responding to the desperate needs of local populations.
Aid workers also regularly find them self in harm’s way and exposed to potentially traumatising critical incidents. No doubt emergency work can be the most professionally exciting and rewarding thing you can do, but it is also extremely demanding and potentially hazardous to physical and mental health. Awareness and use of effective selfcare strategies is essential and so is regular decompression.
Having previously worked 15 years in the field as regional staff counsellor and family advisor in the diplomatic services and the UN system I have an in-depth understanding of the challenges facing expats and humanitarian aid workers and the systems they operate in. I also have my own experience from multiple postings across the world.
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Training in Mental Health Literacy and Employee Wellbeing best practices.
How do you and your team make sure that you practice self-care and care for each other? I train teams in mental health literacy and wellbeing topics both in-person training and online.
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I consult to Managers and Supervisors on their role and responsibilities within Duty of Care and managing employee wellbeing and mental health related issues.
What is the difference between counselling and therapy?
Counselling usually is shorter, more practical and focused on resolving a specific issue.
Counselling can also be very helpful if you feel overwhelmed and stressed and perhaps worry about burning out. Here the sessions will focus on the necessary changes that needs to happen in the time to come so that you take care of your physical and mental health.
After a crisis, a bereavement or a traumatic incident counselling offers help with your recovery.
Often, after we have been exposed to a shocking or life-threatening situation most of us will have very strong acute anxiety symptoms and experience distressing physical reactions.
Counselling in those situations focuses on practical tools and techniques that will help you manage the distress, regain your balance and importantly reduce the risk of longer-term trauma and PTSD.
Psychotherapy is a longer, in-depth process, where we over a series of sessions think together about your situation, gain new understanding and inside into the current challenges and their connection to your present and past life story.
We explore under the surface and connect to underlaying conscious and often not so conscious ways of being in the world that may not work for you anymore and make you distressed.
Above all, psychotherapy provides you with a safe space to freely express yourself, your feelings and your thoughts and together with the therapist work through it over a longer period.