In short Online therapy in English in Utrecht: individual and couples sessions over secure video, scheduled across time zones. Psychodynamic depth work with a US-trained therapist. You pay directly, so nothing runs through local insurance or health records. Fees and fit are covered in a free 15-minute call.

The work

The work I do is relational and focused on pattern. I don't run intake checklists. I don't assign homework. I pay attention to what happens in the session. The moments when something shifts or goes flat. The pattern that keeps showing up underneath the problem. Most people already know their own story. They still keep landing in the same place. What's missing is someone watching in real time, someone who can name what you cannot see from inside it. More on how I work, and how I work with couples.

Why people in Utrecht work with me

Three reasons. Speed, first: against a twenty-four-week GGZ average, I have room now and need no referral, which matters when your contract, your visa, or your project timeline does not pause for the queue. Fit, second: my entire practice is internationals, and the academic and medical worlds Utrecht runs on are ones I know from the inside, so nothing needs translating. Privacy, third: a university city is a small world, your supervisor, your department, your huisarts all a few streets apart, and I work entirely outside the Dutch system, so there is no GGZ file and nothing any of them could ever encounter. And if the right answer is GGZ care or someone local and in person, I will tell you so.

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.

In shortOnline psychodynamic therapy in English for people in Utrecht. Fully private. You pay directly. No GGZ waitlist, and nothing on a Dutch record.

The Utrecht patterns

Utrecht runs on knowledge work. The university and UMC Utrecht anchor a population of PhD candidates, postdocs, physicians, and research staff. The science park's biotech and tech companies join them, along with the banking and consulting offices in between. A four-year PhD contract makes the math brutal. A twenty-four-week wait is an eighth of the funding period spent standing still. Postdocs stack short contracts across cities and countries. They arrive here carrying whatever the last three moves did not settle. Clinicians at the teaching hospital spend their days inside other people's crises. They learn to file their own under later.

The city itself compounds it gently. Utrecht is compact, pretty, bike-scale, and young, and its Dutch social world largely formed years ago in student houses you were never in. English works everywhere here, in the lab, in the seminar, at the register, and almost nowhere does it go deep. You can function fully in this city and still have no one to actually talk to. The international student who stayed for a job or a partner. The third year turns out lonelier than the first. The spouse who followed a tenure-track offer and is rebuilding a career from a canal-side flat that looks, from the outside, like the whole problem is solved.

A young, capable, forward-motion city can make a quiet struggle feel off-script. It is not. It is what the script tends to produce.

Therapy in Utrecht: a knowledge city on a national waiting list

The Dutch access problem is national, and Utrecht sits in the middle of it in every sense. Public care runs through the GGZ on a huisarts referral, basic insurance covers it, and the average wait has stretched to around twenty-four weeks, often for treatment in Dutch. Couples work is not covered anywhere. Private English-speaking depth therapists run roughly 90 to 150 euros a session and tend to be booked. For a city whose international population is built around universities, a teaching hospital, and research careers that run on tight clocks, half a year in a queue is not a plan. This is private depth work in English, paid directly, outside the GGZ.

Questions people ask from Utrecht

Will my Dutch insurance or the GGZ cover therapy with you?
No. Public care runs through the GGZ on a huisarts referral, and basic insurance covers it, but waiting lists now average around twenty-four weeks and the work is often in Dutch, while relationship therapy is not covered at all. I work privately and directly, in English, outside the GGZ, for people who want to start now without months on a list.
Do I need a huisarts referral to start?
No. A referral is only for the GGZ route. Private work needs none and has no waitlist beyond my own availability, so we can usually begin within days.
Are you a BIG-registered psycholoog in the Netherlands?
No. The Dutch clinical titles, GZ-psycholoog and klinisch psycholoog, are protected through the BIG register, which I do not hold. I am US-trained (MA, Counseling) and work privately online, outside the Dutch registers. For a BIG-registered clinician, GGZ care, or medication, I will point you toward it.
Why is it hard to find an English-speaking therapist in Utrecht?
The national English-language supply concentrates in Amsterdam, and the experienced depth-work end of it books out fastest. University counseling services exist but are short-term by design and stretched thin. Online work solves the geography: the pool stops being whoever is free in Utrecht this month.

Selected research on this approach

My work is psychodynamic and depth-oriented. These are some of the studies on the effectiveness of that kind of therapy. They describe research on the method in general, and are not claims about any individual outcome.

  • Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109. doi:10.1037/a0018378
  • Steinert, C., Munder, T., Rabung, S., Hoyer, J., & Leichsenring, F. (2017). Psychodynamic therapy: as efficacious as other empirically supported treatments? A meta-analysis testing equivalence of outcomes. American Journal of Psychiatry, 174(10), 943-953. PMID 28541091

The full reading list is on the approach page.

Related Reading

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Therapy for expats
Therapy in English in other countries