Living Between Cultures
Online psychological support and coaching for expats, international adults and people with mixed cultural or ethnic backgrounds across Europe
Living across countries, languages or cultures can bring freedom, connection and new possibilities. It can also mean missing the ease of familiar relationships, questioning where you belong, or feeling that different parts of you live in different places.
I am Dr Olesya Ovchinnikova, a Psychologist FSP based in Switzerland, offering online sessions in English, Italian and Russian. My life also remains closely connected to the UK, and I regularly spend time in London.
You may have moved recently, lived abroad for years, grown up between cultures or have mixed cultural or ethnic roots. You do not need to be new to a country for questions of identity, connection and belonging to deserve attention.
Making a life in another country
Moving involves more than organising a home, a job and the practical details of everyday life. Even when a move is welcome, it can change your sense of independence, confidence and identity. Familiar ways of connecting may no longer work quite as you expect, and things that once felt effortless may require more thought.
You may have moved for your own work, followed a partner, joined family or arrived under circumstances you did not choose. Perhaps you feel pressure to be grateful for the opportunities you have, making it harder to acknowledge what is difficult or what you miss.
There is room for both: valuing your life where you are and finding parts of it painful.
Loneliness and finding connection abroad
You can know many people and still miss being deeply known. Conversations may remain polite, friendships may take time to develop, or the people closest to you may be scattered across countries and time zones.
Sometimes the difficulty is finding opportunities to connect. Sometimes it also involves the vulnerability of beginning again: reaching out, risking disappointment or allowing yourself to become attached when another move may be ahead.
We can explore what connection means to you, what gets in the way and how you would like your relationships to develop.
Cultural identity, mixed ethnic backgrounds and belonging
When you belong to more than one cultural or ethnic background, other people’s categories may not fit your experience. You may feel connected to several communities while being treated as an outsider in each, or find yourself expected to explain where you are “really” from.
Your relationship with your background may also change over time. Parts of your heritage that once felt distant may become important; others may carry expectations you want to question. Language, appearance, nationality and family history do not always tell the same story.
Therapy can offer space to explore these complexities without requiring you to choose one identity or arrive at a simple answer. Experiences of racism, stereotyping and exclusion also have a place in our conversations, alongside the social circumstances in which they happen.
Adult third culture kids: growing up between cultures
You may recognise yourself in the term “third culture kid”: someone who spent a significant part of childhood outside their parents’ culture or country of origin. As an adult, “Where is home?” may still be a complicated question.
Perhaps you learned to enter new environments quickly, notice subtle differences and make connections across backgrounds. You may also have experienced repeated goodbyes, interrupted friendships or a sense that belonging was temporary.
We can explore what this upbringing has made possible for you, what it has cost and how it influences your relationships and choices now.
Navigating cultural codes and family expectations
Moving between cultures often means reading different, sometimes unspoken, rules. How directly can you speak? What counts as respectful? How are anger, affection or disagreement expressed? What does it mean to be a good partner, a responsible child or a successful adult?
You may switch languages, humour, gestures or ways of presenting yourself almost automatically. This flexibility may feel natural in some situations and exhausting in others. You might notice yourself becoming quieter, more careful or less able to express what you need.
Family expectations can add another layer, particularly when ideas about independence, loyalty, gender or relationships differ between home and the wider world. Our work can help you explore these tensions and find ways of responding that make room for your relationships and your own needs.
Change, distance and the places you miss
An international life can involve losses that are difficult to explain: everyday contact with family, the familiarity of a language, a professional identity or the future you once imagined in a particular place.
Returning can bring its own surprises. Somewhere you thought of as home may no longer feel quite the same, and people close to you may not fully understand how you have changed.
There is space to speak about what you miss, what you want to keep close and what you are ready to build where you are now.
How I work
My own mixed ethnic background and experience of living across Europe are part of what draws me to this work. I have spent extended periods of my adult life in Italy, the UK and Switzerland, as well as extended periods studying in the Netherlands and Denmark. These experiences have shaped my interest in identity and belonging, and my attention to the cultural codes, expectations and ways of relating we navigate in everyday life.
They inform my curiosity about your experience, without assuming it mirrors my own. Alongside my background in psychology and the social sciences, they help me consider how personal history, family, culture and our wider surroundings shape the ways we understand and express ourselves.
Alongside conversation, we may notice how particular situations affect you physically. Perhaps you hold your breath when speaking in a group, brace yourself before a family conversation or feel a sense of ease when you can use a familiar language. These experiences can help us understand when you feel able to be yourself and when you feel under pressure.
Depending on what brings you, our work may focus on a current transition, loneliness, relationships, grief or longstanding patterns. We decide together what needs attention and find a pace that works for you.
Online sessions and getting started
I offer online consultations via Zoom in English, Italian and Russian. Please let me know where you will be based for our sessions so we can confirm whether I can offer support in your location.
You are welcome to book a free 20-minute initial consultation. We can discuss what brings you, what you are looking for and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Get in touch to arrange an initial consultation.