Online psychodynamic therapy in English for internationals in Amsterdam: no referral chain, no GGZ queue, no Dutch records.
The work
The work I do is relational and pattern-focused. I don't run through intake checklists or assign exercises between sessions. I pay attention to what happens in the room: what you're saying, what you're not saying, the moments when something shifts or goes flat or speeds up. That's the material we work with.
Most people arrive already knowing the story of their situation. They've told it to themselves a hundred times and always land in the same place. What's missing is a different angle, someone watching in real time who can name what's invisible from inside it. That's what I offer. Not interpretation from a distance, but attention in the room, offered as it happens.
I work with individuals and couples. Individual work is usually about finding the pattern underneath the presenting problem, the thing that keeps recurring in different forms across different circumstances. Couples work is about finding what the argument is really about, which is rarely what it appears to be about. Both come down to the same thing: seeing what you haven't been able to see, and from there, actually being able to do something different.
The Dutch staircase, and where it stalls
Therapy through the Dutch system is a sequence: your huisarts first, then usually some sessions with the practice's POH-GGZ counselor, then, if more is needed, a referral into Basis GGZ for short structured treatment or Specialistische GGZ for the complex cases. It is rational on paper and congested in practice. Waits for specialized GGZ care in the Amsterdam region run months, frequently around twenty weeks, your eigen risico applies, and the treatment frame is diagnosis-driven and protocol-shaped. Couples therapy is not covered by the basisverzekering at all. The full mechanics, including the non-contracted reimbursement question and the exact phrase to use with your insurer, are on my Netherlands page.
Private practice is the relief valve, at roughly 80 to 200 euros a session, and Amsterdam genuinely does have English-speaking therapists; this is the easiest major city in continental Europe to be Anglophone in. The constraint is subtler: finding someone who works in English and does open-ended depth work and has room and is not protocol-bound takes longer than the city's reputation implies. A lot of internationals run that search for a few weeks and then widen it to therapists who happen to live elsewhere.
Amsterdam's specific weather
The clinical texture here is distinct. Internationals in Amsterdam are rarely lonely in the ordinary sense; the city is sociable, the English is universal, the Zuidas and the startup scene supply instant networks. What they describe instead is a polite impermeability: Dutch life is friendly at the surface and fully booked underneath, agendas planned out for weeks, friendship circles settled since school. Years in, people have a full calendar and no one who really knows them. Add the flat gray light from October to March, the bluntness that lands as criticism on non-Dutch nervous systems, and the dual-career strain of households where one partner's relocation package is the reason everyone is here, and you have the standard Amsterdam caseload: functioning, well-housed in Zuid or De Pijp, and privately running on empty.
How I fit
I am a US-trained therapist working online, privately, outside the BIG register and the GGZ system; nothing we do requires a referral, produces a diagnosis, or enters Dutch records. The trade is explicit: no insurance reimbursement, in exchange for starting now, in English, with depth work rather than a protocol. For medication, assessment, or covered care, the huisarts route is the right one, and fifteen free minutes will tell you which of us you actually need.
Questions people ask from Amsterdam
What people bring to online therapy
The people I work with in English come for a wide range of reasons: anxiety, depression, stress and burnout, anger management, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, loneliness, self-esteem issues, procrastination, sleep problems, attachment patterns, self-sabotage, perfectionism, identity questions, and existential concerns. Online counseling makes this work possible from wherever you are, whether you need an English-speaking therapist, a virtual counselor, or simply someone who can work in your language at a depth that matters.
How it works
Sessions are online via secure video call. I work with individuals and couples (60 minutes). Before your first session, we have a free 15-minute call to see if this feels like the right fit for you.