ADULT THERAPY
Individually tailored therapy In Barcelona or Online In Spain and Europe to help you navigate life’s challenges
Managing and Reducing Stress in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, and the Canary Islands
You are in a new country living the dream, but you...
Feel isolated? Is coping with isolation as an international in Spain is wearing you down?
Feel stressed? Has the promise of being a digital nomad shifted to the exhaustion of navigating relocation stress?
Feel stuck because anxiety, stress or depression have become obstacles?
Suffer from culture shock? Has the excitement of living abroad dwindled?
Have trust and communication issues that are affecting your personal and professional relationships?
Isolation.Emotions. Thoughts. Concerns.
They are blocking you, preventing you from feeling content with life.
You feel isolated and alone.
You have tried talking to friends, taking control of your emotions and changing unhealthy dynamics. And maybe they have worked for a while, but then you have fallen back into old habits and patterns.
You need help to see change happen.
You want to feel like yourself again.
Our individual and couples therapy services in Barcelona and online across Spain and Europe, cater to English-speaking expats dealing with isolation, anxiety, depression, and stress.
We help digital nomads navigating relocation stress, international students, and couples working through trust and communication breakdowns.
We offer therapeutic support in various modalities like Solution Focused Therapy (SFT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and many other types of therapy.
You deserve an English-speaking therapist who will recognise your strengths, focus on these and build on them in therapy.
Someone with an international mindset who will enable you to view problems and situations from a variety of perspectives while showing the utmost respect for your life experience and background.
Therapy in Barcelona offers individual therapy services and online therapy for internationals like you. Therapy delivered in office in Barcelona and online to internationals anywhere in Spain, including Madrid, Valencia, Màlaga, and the Canary Islands.
Discover how we can help you
Easing Isolation and Loneliness – counselling for feelings of isolation
Easing anxiety – anxiety counselling Barcelona
Recovering from depression, sadness or loneliness – Depression therapy Barcelona
Managing and reducing stress – stress management Barcelona
Reducing Isolation
Isolation is one of the most common reasons internationals reach out to us.
Moving country often means losing the daily, casual contact that used to hold your support network together.
The friends who knew your history, the family a short drive away, the small talk that made a place feel familiar. None of that transfers automatically to a new country, and rebuilding it takes longer than most people expect.
The timing of this catches people off guard. The early excitement of a move tends to fade around the three to six month mark, once the practical parts of settling in are done but a deeper sense of belonging hasn’t yet formed.
Visas sorted, flat found, routine established, and still something feels missing. This gap is common. It doesn’t mean something has gone wrong or that you’ve made the wrong decision. It’s one of the most frequent patterns we see in our work with internationals.
Loneliness abroad rarely has one fix. Practical steps help, building small routines, joining communities around shared interests, giving yourself time. But some of it runs deeper than logistics.
There’s often a real grief in leaving a previous life behind, even a life you were glad to leave, and that grief needs somewhere to go.
Therapy gives you space to work through that loss and start rebuilding a sense of connection, whether or not your social circle has caught up yet.
Therapy also helps you to tell the difference between loneliness that time and effort will ease, and loneliness tied to something worth addressing directly.
Easing anxiety
You worry excessively and you can’t avoid it.
You sense something will go wrong. Will my child’s new school be OK? Am I suitable for the job?
You might be experiencing dizziness or shortness of breath. Or might have a constant nagging feeling in your stomach.
Many reasons can set off anxiety for expats.
Reshaping your life in another country is a known trigger.
In individual therapy in Barcelona or online, we will help you mitigate this feeling with tools and strategies.
Recovering from depression, sadness or loneliness
Are you feeling down and longing for your old life?
Do you have everything you wanted but feel you are unable to enjoy it?
Are you stuck and can’t move on?
Are you feeling lonely and isolated?
Depression can manifest itself in many different ways and is a common concern among expats.
Our expat therapy services in Barcelona or online can offer you a safe and confidential space in which to explore your feelings and work on strategies to help you feel better.
Managing and reducing stress
Do you lose your temper easily? Little things annoy you. You snap at your partner, children or employees.
Are you always rushing somewhere? And when you stop, you feel exhausted because you push hard and carry a lot of responsibility.
Do you find it difficult to enjoy the moment? You are not 100% present.
Stress can sneak into your everyday life, building up until you’re unable to handle it.
Stress management therapy Barcelona or online can offer you mechanisms to give you a break, help you handle your workload and enhance your time management skills.
Creating a healthy work-life balance
Are you juggling an unrelenting workload with being present as a parent? The end result is exhaustion.
Is your identity tied to what you do instead of who you are? Your work may be having a detrimental effect on your personal relationships.
Do you feel you’re on the edge of burnout? You’re unable to disconnect when the time comes to enjoy yourself.
Therapy can put you back on an even keel by helping you to figure out where your priorities lie, improve your time management strategies, learn to delegate efficiently and communicate better.
Developing self-acceptance
Do you people-please? You seek to gain external validation.
Do you strive for perfection? This leaves you feeling dissatisfied no matter what.
Does your inner voice say “you’re not good enough”, “why can’t you be like other people” or “you’re making a fool of yourself”?
In therapy, we will work towards developing self-compassion, learning self- acceptance, managing uncomfortable emotions and relating differently to unhelpful thought patterns. The goal is to feel at ease in your own skin.
Relating to thoughts, feelings and others in a healthy way
Are you overthinking? Being over-critical? Stuffing your emotions?
You may be stuck in a train of thought or a whirlpool of emotions that are holding you back and hindering your relationships.
Our therapists can help you become aware of the stories you’re telling yourself, the first step towards transforming your relationship to thoughts and feelings.
Resolving issues around your family of origin
Do you have a history of abuse that makes you backpedal in relationships?
Have you concluded that to overcome your anger, you must first explore the relationship with your Mum or Dad?
Do your feelings of low self-worth stem from over-critical parents?
Is your relocation the cause of internal conflict with family members?
Do you struggle with the guilt of being away from your family of origin and missing milestones or having ageing parents?
In therapy, you will explore your emotions to remove barriers and open the door to change. You will learn tools for communication and conflict resolution.
Our therapists will share strategies that will enable you to maintain, repair, manage or let go of your family relationships.
Coping with grief and loss
Have you lost a loved one? Perhaps you didn’t get the chance to say goodbye and you can’t seem to let go.
Have you experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth? You will be mourning your baby and the hopes and dreams you had for them.
Are you separating or divorcing? You cannot avoid missing what there was and what could have been.
Have you lost your job? And it’s been a big blow to your confidence.
Do you miss your friends? The ones back home or perhaps more recent ones have relocated. Despite your plans to keep in touch, you cannot avoid a feeling of emptiness.
There are many kinds of loss, and everyone deals with it as best they can.
Our therapists know grief feels like a complex mess of emotions (sadness, regret, guilt, anger, yearning) and can accompany you in your pain.
They can help you learn to cope and live with loss in a healthy and meaningful way.
Tackling life’s big questions
Starting over again in another country is a major transition that has you feeling more alone than ever abd reevaluating life and yourself.
Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want in life? What is important? Why do I feel so isolated?
Big questions for which we, understandably, don’t always have answers.
In counselling for expats, you will engage in deep conversations about what truly matters to you. As you seek answers to these questions, you will open the door to leading a more meaningful life.
Managing life transitions
Marriage. Divorce. Parenthood. Becoming a digital nomad and navigating relocation stress. Adopting a child. Ageing. Retirement. Job loss. Professional reinvention.
And relocating. Especially if it’s in a new country.
Life-altering events can leave you feeling disoriented, lost or full of uncertainty, because your shield of familiarity has disappeared.
Therapy can help you reframe challenges, converting obstacles into an opportunity to grow by managing the distress and finding strategies to better adjust to life in Spain, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Valencia, the Canary Islands or wherever you’ve landed.
Resolving a trauma
Are you re-experiencing a traumatic event?
Do you have intrusive thoughts, flashbacks or nightmares?
A traffic accident. Abuse. Witnessing something traumatic happening to someone else.
It might have weaved its way into your life and seems to have taken control of you.
In trauma therapy, you will identify what you are struggling with and which situations trigger emotions that weigh you down.
We will help you process the event, enabling you to cope with it in a healthy way.
Adjusting to health issues
Are you having trouble accepting a newly diagnosed illness? You need to adjust to your new situation to maximise your well-being.
Is your loved one unwell and it’s taking a toll on you? You want to offer your support but you are unsure how to.
Are you having a hard time navigating a different health system in a foreign language? It’s so frustrating, especially when you’re worried about your health.
Therapy for health issues will help you identify what you can control, what you cannot, and how to reconcile the two in order to maximise your well-being.
Navigating LGBTIQ+
Are you yet to come out to your family? Are you unsure about how to tell them?
Are you struggling to figure out your sexual identity?
Are you striving to understand sex and dating?
In therapy, we provide a safe and non-judgmental space where you can explore your sexual identity, identify internal obstacles and develop strategies to cope with external barriers.
Therapy in Barcelona is a safe space for LGBTIQ+ identified individuals and we have queer therapists in Barcelona on our team.
Becoming a parent and parenting
Are you afraid of not being a good parent?
Do you want to avoid making your parents’ mistakes?
Has becoming parents altered your relationship?
Navigating parenthood can be hard, especially without your support network.
It should be something to enjoy, but maybe you’re unable to because you’re busy adjusting to different routines, changing relationships, a new country and unfamiliar emotions.
It can all become overwhelming.
In therapy for parents in Barcelona or online, we can help you to discover strategies for finding time for self-care and to explore ways to stay connected to your partner. By highlighting your strengths as a parent, your worries will be eased.
Establishing and maintaining loving relationships
Have you relapsed into unhealthy patterns and thoughts stemming from a bad past experience?
Is establishing a relationship a challenge now you’re single and an expat? Is dating in Barcelona proving harder than you expected?
Are you unable to commit further in a present relationship because a past one keeps surfacing?
During therapy sessions, we will delve into the experiences that have moulded your behaviour, attitudes and thoughts, and we will work to make change happen.
Exploring healthy sexuality and intimacy
Do you have trouble expressing what you want or need to have satisfying sex?
Do you tend to turn to sex when you’re sad or anxious?
Do you remain emotionally distant or even absent during sex?
In sex therapy, you will learn to openly communicate your sexual needs and to explore what is making you feel sad, anxious or emotionally distant.
The aim is that you will be able to take charge of your emotional well-being around your sex life.
Therapy in Barcelona is a group practice founded in 2011 by a psychology-trained Australian therapist who has made her life in Barcelona
As international therapists living the expat experience, we are able to create real connection with you.
We understand the isolation that comes with living abroad.
We bring a balance of professionalism and humanity to the therapeutic process, offering sensitivity, time for self-exploration, and skills to aid growth.
We offer individual therapy by English-speaking therapists in Barcelona or online for expats anywhere in Spain including Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, and the Canary Islands.
We also offer couples therapy, adolescent therapy or family therapy.
A broad range of specialities
A large team of English-speaking therapists means we are able to address a wide range of issues.
Qualified therapists
All collaborating expat therapists are trained psychologists or equivalent in their native countries.
Collaborative team
You will work with a therapist who is enriched by the experience, knowledge and perspective of 11 other professionals.
Excellence
We focus on being effective to help you reach your goals.
Diverse therapy types
We use evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Solution Focused Therapy (SFT), Schema Therapy, Mindfulness-based therapies, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Therapy, and many more modalities as well as integrative approaches tailored to your needs.
Understanding
We are all internationals so we understand the complexities of living abroad including coping with isolation in Spain, anxiety, multiple griefs, the stress of relocation, loneliness, the pressure on relationships and intercultural or long distance relationship challenges.
In our clients own words
I didn't know what to expect. I just want to solve my problems. I thought that we would focus more on my youth but the CBT focuses more on the here and now, which I like. I feel that I'm progressing. The therapist is very non-judgmental and I always feel comfortable sharing my concerns.
She was someone I could talk to and felt completely safe with when I didn't have anybody else to turn to. She is caring, intuitive, and steers you in the directions you need to go.
Thank you. I achieved the goals I set out to achieve with you. The therapist is easy to talk to, practical, gentle but firm and goes the extra mile. Most importantly, I am heaps better for having used this service. I now have lots of strategies to help me through challenging times.
Are you afraid you won’t “click” with your therapist?
Rather than being immediate, it takes around 4 sessions to build a strong connection and shared understanding with your therapist.
We match you up with a therapist based on the information you entered on the intake form (including your therapist preference if you had one) or the information we gathered during the discovery call.
However, there is still a possibility you won’t “click”. If this is the case, you can contact us to ask for a change, and your therapist may recommend another in-house professional who might be a better fit.
What to expect of the therapy process
Every person is unique and has unique concerns, so at Therapy in Barcelona, we tailor-make individual therapy and the therapeutic process to fit each client.
However, we can offer you a rough road map:
1
Complete the intake form or reserve a discovery call with our Intake Coordinator.
We will then match you to a therapist and book a session for you. Or, if you mentioned a preferred therapist and their experience and skills have a good fit with your concerns, we will reserve a session with them.
2
Session 1
We will review the factors that led you into therapy and discuss the details of informed consent to begin to structure therapy.
3
Initial phase – sessions 2 to 4
You will build a mutual rapport, explore your skills, identify unhealthy strategies, delve into past and current struggles, and set your therapy goals.
4
Work-change phase – sessions 5+
You will analyse and dismantle unhelpful strategies, learn skills and practise methods as well as reflect on deep insights.
5
Ending phase
You will probably decrease the frequency of sessions. You will connect to your natural supports, reinforce your gains and develop a follow-up plan to maintain growth once therapy has ended.
Our fees:
Once you are matched to a therapist, we will let you know their fees and preferred payment method.
Are you ready to invest in your well-being to obtain peace of mind with the help of our psychology-trained therapists in Barcelona or online?
We don’t perform miracles, but we can support you in many ways. Guide you towards a more fulfilling life. Help you to regain the confidence you’ve lost. Encourage you to foster growth and bring happiness.
There is really no need to wait until you hit rock bottom before you reach out.
We will contact you within 24 hours M-F.
FAQ
Adult/Individual Therapy FAQs
Adult therapy at Therapy in Barcelona is individually tailored, face-to-face therapy designed to help you navigate life’s challenges as an international living in Barcelona. Our English-speaking therapists specialise in helping expats and internationals address anxiety, depression, stress, cultural adjustment, grief and personal growth.
Therapy is also delivered online to internationals anywhere in Spain, including Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, and the Canary Islands.
Adult therapy is ideal for internationals or expats coping with isolation, loneliness, culture shock, anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, work-life balance issues, grief and loss, family relationship challenges, life transitions, or anyone seeking personal growth and self-discovery. We support international students; digital nomads navigating relocation stress; and couples working through trust and communication breakdown.
You are matched, not assigned. Our intake team assesses your needs, preferences, and goals before recommending a therapist, rather than placing you with whoever has the next open slot. This is why 91.83% of our clients rebook after their first session.
We help with anxiety, depression, stress management, feeling isolated in Spain, cultural adjustment, grief and loss, family relationship issues, anger management, low self-esteem, work-life balance, life transitions, trauma processing, and general personal development.
Yes. Isolation is one of the most common reasons internationals reach out to us. Moving country often means losing the daily, casual contact that used to hold your support network together. Therapy gives you a space to work through that loss and rebuild a sense of connection, whether or not your social circle has caught up yet.
Very. The early excitement of a move often fades around the three to six month mark, once the practical parts of settling in are done but a deeper sense of belonging has not yet formed. This gap is common. It does not mean something has gone wrong. It is one of the most frequent patterns we see in our work with internationals.
Loneliness abroad often responds to a combination of practical steps, building small routines, joining communities with shared interests, and therapeutic support to work through the grief of leaving a previous life behind. A therapist can help you tell the difference between loneliness that time and effort will ease, and loneliness tied to something deeper worth addressing directly.
Therapy duration varies depending on individual needs and goals. Some clients see improvement in a few sessions, while others benefit from longer-term therapy. Your therapist will work with you to establish realistic timelines based on your specific concerns.
Yes, as well as all being 100% fluent in English, our team speaks multiple languages including French, German, Austrian-German, Swiss German, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Spanish, and Catalan.
We use evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Schema Therapy, Mindfulness-based therapies, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Therapy, and integrative approaches tailored to your needs.
As of 2025, Individual adult therapy sessions cost between €85 and €95 for 50-minute sessions, depending on the therapist. Please see our fees page for detailed pricing.
Yes, we offer both in-person and online therapy sessions to accommodate your preferences and schedule. Online therapy is available to internationals anywhere in the world, including in Spain, across Madrid, Valencia, Málaga, and the Canary Islands.
