Expats and nRIs
For those who feel like a stranger in a new (or their own) country
Living abroad
Having moved around growing up, I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t fit in anywhere, but also fit in everywhere. In the six countries I lived in, I always felt a bit of culture shock and adjustment difficulty settling into a new place. It is disorienting, after all, to be in a completely different environment than the one you’re used to. If you choose to work with me, you will be working with someone who really knows what it’s like to live abroad, and also move back to their home country after 20 years.
how i can help
I help people adjust to their new homes, whether that’s in a new country, new city, or back in their home countries. I am culturally sensitive and work on incorporating adjustment related to the cultural values they might face being in this new place. What I have found is that the challenges people bring to therapy in this context tend to run deeper than adjustment. There is often a loneliness that feels shameful to admit, especially when you are supposed to be grateful for the opportunity. There is the complexity of maintaining relationships across time zones with people who don't quite understand your life now, and a version of yourself back home that no longer fits. For NRIs especially, there can be the added weight of family expectations, guilt about having left, and the strange experience of returning to India and feeling like a stranger in a place that is supposed to be yours.
In our work together, we make room for all of it. The practical and the existential. The excitement and the grief. The identity questions that a big move tends to surface, about who you are outside of the context you grew up in, what you actually want, and what home even means to you now. You don't have to have it all figured out before you come. That figuring out is exactly what we do together.
