Guide
Far from home, and on your own
You moved for work, study, love or a new start. The practical side gets done, while feeling at home can take much longer, and the people who know you best are far away.
Draft Not yet reviewed by the psychologist · Sources
What therapy does
You talk it through in a language you are at home in, look at how you treat yourself while you settle in, and practise ways to feel steadier and more connected.
How to start
A free 25-minute conversation by video.
How life abroad can feel
Far from your usual people and places
You miss people and places at home, and staying close from far away takes effort. Making friends takes longer than you expected, and evenings or weekends can feel empty. Everyday things take more effort in another language, and you are not always sure you are understood. You can feel caught between two places, unsure where you belong.
You are not the only one
On 1 January 2025, about 65 million people living in the EU had been born in another country, around one in seven. On average, people who have moved report somewhat more loneliness than people who have not. You do not need a diagnosis to talk about it.
Why life abroad can last
Two ways of understanding the distance
How people settle in varies a great deal, with their own situation and with the place they move to. In a study that followed students through their first year in a new country, difficulties were greatest on arrival and eased over time. The well-known “culture shock” curve, with a honeymoon first and a dip later, did not show up.
Moving means losing a lot that was familiar at once: language, people, habits, and part of how you see yourself. Grieving for this is a natural response to moving. Loneliness can also make people more alert to signs of rejection, which makes reaching out harder. Both approaches look at what the move has stirred up in you, alongside the practical side.
Compassion Focused Therapy
Feeling connected to others is seen as one of the main ways the mind feels safe. Far from your usual people, the threat system can stay more on alert, and calm is harder to find.
Internal Family Systems
Different sides of you are seen as pulling in different directions: one drawn to the new life, another missing home or holding on to who you were.
What can help
How therapy works with life abroad
Sessions give you a regular place to talk things through, in English, French or Romanian. People who speak more than one language sometimes switch language in therapy when something painful comes up, to come closer to it or to keep some distance. Below are the two approaches we use.
In Compassion Focused Therapy, you look at how you treat yourself while you settle in, and practise ways to feel steadier and more connected, with others and with yourself.
In Internal Family Systems, you get to know the sides of you that miss home and the sides that push on with the new life, and what each of them needs.
How both approaches are used in a sessionNothing is forced. You can slow down or pause at any point.
Urgent help
When to seek urgent help
If you are in danger, or thinking about ending your life, call 112 (or your local emergency number) now, or go to the nearest emergency department.
Wherever you live in the EU, 112 reaches the emergency services, free of charge.
findahelpline.com lists free helplines in every country.
Limits
Who this is not for
Your psychologist offers talking therapy by appointment. Some situations need other care first: a crisis, hearing or seeing things others do not, extreme mood swings, eating that affects physical health, alcohol or drug use that has become hard to stop, or a need for medication or a hospital stay. Your family doctor can refer you to the right specialist care.
If you are unsure, mention it in your request. The initial consultation is also there to check this together.
What we recommend
Books and tools to explore
To explore at your own pace, alongside therapy or before you start.
Explore the Living abroad shelf
Psychological therapies can reduce loneliness, with small to medium effects in a review of 28 randomised trials, most often of cognitive behavioural therapy. In an earlier review, the approaches that helped most worked on how people think about contact with others. Language matters as well: in a review of 76 studies, mostly from the United States, therapy held in the client’s first language helped about twice as much as therapy held in English, and expats in therapy described language as something that could make or break the work.
There is no research yet on Compassion Focused Therapy or Internal Family Systems for adjusting to life in another country. What research does show, across every kind of therapy, is that how well you and your psychologist work together matters for the result.
General information, alongside an individual evaluation by a psychologist.
- Eurostat (2026). EU population diversity by citizenship and country of birth. Statistics Explained, data extracted 2 February 2026.
- Martín-María, N., Pemau, A., Rico-Uribe, L. A., De la Torre-Luque, A., Losada-Baltar, A., & Lara, E. (2026). Loneliness in migrants: are there differences compared to non-migrants? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 409.
- Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46(1).
- Ward, C., Okura, Y., Kennedy, A., & Kojima, T. (1998). The U-curve on trial: a longitudinal study of psychological and sociocultural adjustment during cross-cultural transition. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22(3).
- Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A. (2005). Migration, cultural bereavement and cultural identity. World Psychiatry, 4(1).
- Cacioppo, J. T., & Hawkley, L. C. (2009). Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(10).
- Gilbert, P. (2009). Introducing compassion-focused therapy. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 15(3).
- Gilbert, P. (2014). The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53(1).
- Schwartz, R. C. (2013). Moving from acceptance toward transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(8).
- Dewaele, J.-M., & Costa, B. (2013). Multilingual clients’ experience of psychotherapy. Language and Psychoanalysis, 2(2).
- Hickin, N., Käll, A., Shafran, R., Sutcliffe, S., Manzotti, G., & Langan, D. (2021). The effectiveness of psychological interventions for loneliness: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 88.
- Masi, C. M., Chen, H. Y., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2011). A meta-analysis of interventions to reduce loneliness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(3).
- Griner, D., & Smith, T. B. (2006). Culturally adapted mental health intervention: a meta-analytic review. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 43(4).
- Filipič Sterle, M., Verhofstadt, L. L., Bell, P., & De Mol, J. (2018). In search of the recognition of expatriate complexity: interpretative phenomenological analysis of psychotherapy experience. The Qualitative Report, 23(12).
- Flückiger, C., Del Re, A. C., Wampold, B. E., & Horvath, A. O. (2018). The alliance in adult psychotherapy: a meta-analytic synthesis. Psychotherapy, 55(4).
Not yet reviewed by the psychologist
