Aaron Platt, MA (Counseling, La Salle; Sociology, UC Berkeley) is a therapist offering individual and couples therapy in English to clients worldwide. He completed his clinical internship at the Philadelphia Consultation Center and is a member of the American Counseling Association. His psychodynamic approach focuses on the patterns that keep people stuck, not the surface symptoms, but the underlying structure.

Expat Life

Honest essays about the loneliness, identity shifts, and quiet struggles of life abroad, written for people whose move has been harder than they expected, or whose return has been harder than they thought it would be.

← All essays

Culture Shock Isn't the Problem

Culture shock is real. But it’s not what breaks most people.

Everyone Says Give It a Year. It's Been a Year.

Before you moved, people told you it takes time. “Give it six months.” “The first year is the hardest.” You believed them.

How to Find a Therapist When You Live Abroad

You've decided you want to talk to someone. That's the hard part, honestly. The rest is logistics. But the logistics of finding a therapist as an expat are confusing, so let me walk you through it. Not as a sales pitch, but as someone who's been on both sides of this.

Making Friends Abroad After 22

Most advice about making friends abroad is written for 23-year-olds with infinite social energy and no children. If that’s not you, the advice feels insulting.

I Don't Belong Here But I Don't Belong There Either

You thought you had two options: stay abroad or go home. Then you went home for a visit and realized there’s no home to go back to.

I Hate It Here And I Feel Guilty for Hating It

You hate it. The weather. The bureaucracy. The social norms. The distance from everyone who matters. And you feel guilty for hating it.

I Have Friends Here But I Still Feel Alone

You’re not isolated. That’s the confusing part. You have people in your life. You go to dinners. You’re in group chats.

I Made a Mistake Moving Here

Not ambivalence. Not doubt. Certainty. You moved here and it was wrong and you know it in your body the way you know when you’ve taken a wrong turn.

I Moved Abroad and I'm Miserable

You probably didn't type that into Google expecting a therapist to answer. You were hoping for a Reddit thread, or a blog post from someone who felt the same way and then found a great café and made a friend and now everything's fine. I'm not going to give you that.

I Moved Abroad for My Partner

You made the decision together. Or maybe your partner got the offer and you agreed to go. Or maybe you didn't really feel like you had a choice, but you told yourself (and everyone else) that you did. However it happened, you're here now. Your partner goes to work every morning with a purpose, a structure, a reason to get dressed. And you wake up in an apartment in a city where you don't speak the language, don't have a job, don't have friends, and increasingly don't recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror.

I Resent My Partner for Bringing Me Here

You agreed to come. You want to be clear about that. Nobody forced you. You talked about it, weighed the options, made the decision together.

I'm Jealous of My Partner's Life Here

They leave in the morning and come home in the evening and in between they have a day. A real day. With colleagues and problems to solve.

My Friends Back Home Don't Understand My Life Anymore

You called your best friend. You told them what's been eating at you. They said: "But at least you're in Europe!" They didn't mean it dismissively. Something caved in your chest anyway.

My Relationship Is Falling Apart After Moving Abroad

You moved to a new country together. Maybe it was for one person's job. Maybe it was a mutual decision, a fresh start, an adventure. Either way, you were supposed to be doing this as a team. Instead, you're fighting more than you ever have, or worse, you've stopped fighting and started coexisting in a silence that scares you more than the arguments did.

Nobody Here Knows the Real Me

Back home, people knew you. Not just your name and your job, they knew you. Your humor, your moods, your history.

The Person I Was Before I Moved Doesn't Exist Anymore

You catch yourself sometimes. A memory surfaces of a version of yourself laughing easily and knowing everyone in the room.

Thinking About Moving Back Home

You've started looking at flights. Not booking them. Just looking. Maybe the fantasy of going home is carrying all the weight of an admission you can't make.

We Moved Abroad Together and Now We're Strangers

You were fine at home. You were a team. You knew each other’s rhythms. You could read each other across a room.

Why Expat Life Is Lonely

Your Instagram looks amazing. The cobblestone streets, the weekend trips, the foreign grocery store that somehow feels cinematic. Your friends back home are jealous. "You're living the dream!" they say, and you say "I know, I'm so lucky," and then you hang up and sit in your apartment in silence and feel a loneliness so heavy it has actual weight.

You Left Home. Now What?

You moved abroad for university and got exactly what you wanted. So why does something feel missing? A therapist on the disorientation of freedom.

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I'll respond within a few hours on weekdays. A brief 15-minute call first, just to see if this is the right fit.