Why therapy for expats in Belgrade is more than finding someone who speaks English

Moving abroad changes much more than your address. Your routines, your friendships, the way people read you and the way you read them all shift at once. On top of that come residence permits, paperwork in a language you may not read, and a support network that now lives in another time zone.

Research on people living abroad keeps finding the same things. In one comparative study, expatriates had a 2.5 times higher risk of anxiety, depression and related problems than people who stayed at home.¹ Loneliness and the loss of everyday support play a large part, and social support is one of the strongest protective factors against the stress of adapting to a new culture.²

Belgrade's international community has also grown fast. Every year, tens of thousands of foreigners move to Serbia for longer stays, many times more than ten years ago. Some came for work or love. Many came because staying at home was no longer possible.³ If you are one of them and something feels heavier than you expected, you are not alone, and it is not a personal failure.

Good therapy for expats in Belgrade does not assume that every difficulty is "just adjustment". Sometimes moving abroad simply brings older patterns, relationships or experiences into sharper focus.

When English isn't your first language either

Many people in Belgrade's international community speak English as their second, third or fourth language. Most foreigners who move to Serbia come from countries where English is not spoken at home.⁴ You can still do therapy for expats in Belgrade in English, and you don't need perfect English to do it.

Research on multilingual people shows that emotional words in a later learned language often feel weaker than in the mother tongue.⁵ That distance can actually help: some people find it easier to talk about painful experiences in English. Others notice that something important only comes in their own language.

Both are welcome here. You can switch languages, say a word in your mother tongue, pause, or show with your body what words can't hold yet. Clients often move between languages on purpose, to come closer to a memory or to step back from it.⁶ We also work in German and Spanish.

Is online therapy as effective as in person?

For most people, yes. Large reviews comparing video therapy with in-person sessions found no meaningful difference in outcomes, including for anxiety, depression and trauma.⁸ For depression specifically, a meta-analysis of randomised trials found video therapy roughly as effective as therapy in the room.⁹

For many people, online sessions are what makes therapy for expats in Belgrade continuous: you can keep the same therapist when you travel, move to another country or spend the summer at home.