How We Work Together
Therapy with me draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP), with a foundation in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). In plain language: the work isn't about getting rid of difficult feelings. It's about learning to relate to them differently, and acting in line with what matters to you, even when it's hard. Sessions are in English and Portuguese, online or in person in Neukölln, Berlin.
Expat life and cultural adjustment in Berlin
Building a life in a country that wasn't yours is one of the most underestimated psychological challenges there is. The practical parts — visa, flat, job, language — are exhausting on their own. The harder parts often surface later: the grief of belonging to two places at once, the version of yourself that feels harder to reach in a second language, the relationships that strain when you start over, the question of whether you'll ever fully belong here.
I've lived this myself, and I work with people at every stage of it — the first overwhelming year, the longer adaptation, the harder questions that surface once the urgent ones are answered. The work covers cultural shock and homesickness, identity questions in immigration, building social and professional connections, relationship difficulties that arose from migration, and finding ways to stay yourself under different conditions.
Therapy for neurodivergent adults (especially ADHD)
Whether you've been diagnosed with ADHD, are starting to suspect your mind works differently, or are still figuring out what to make of recent self-realisations, we can work with that. A lot of adults arrive here exhausted from years of compensating: working harder, masking more, blaming themselves for what was never going to fit. Therapy with me isn't about fixing how your mind works. It's about understanding it and building a life that actually accommodates it.
In practice, that means working on emotional regulation when feelings get too big, executive function patterns and the shame that often comes with them, the burnout that follows years of overcompensation, and the relational fallout: communication mismatches, sensory friction in cohabitation, rejection-sensitivity that turns ordinary conflicts into something much bigger. I don't diagnose, but I work alongside diagnosis (or its absence) without making it a prerequisite for help.
Working through patterns in close relationships
The same patterns repeating in your relationships with a partner, with family, sometimes with yourself are often where the most important work is. Maybe a particular kind of argument keeps happening. Maybe you find yourself withdrawing, over-functioning, or holding back things you wish you could say. Maybe relationships in your present life keep echoing patterns from your past in ways you don't fully understand.
I work with individuals on relationships, not as couples therapy. We look at what's happening, what it costs you, and what could change. Some of this work is hands-on in a particular way: we pay attention to the patterns showing up in our own conversations, because they're often the same ones showing up everywhere else.
Anxiety, burnout, and emotions that feel too big
A lot of people come to me wanting to know how to handle emotions that feel too big: the overwhelm, the shutdown, how a small thing can throw off your whole afternoon, the tiredness of managing what's happening inside while still showing up to work and the rest of life. Anxiety, depression, and burnout often live here, especially in expats and neurodivergent adults whose nervous systems have been working overtime for a long time.
The work isn't about getting rid of those feelings. It's about learning to relate to them differently: sitting with the discomfort instead of fighting it, and acting in line with what matters to you, even when it's hard. Over time, most people describe feeling less reactive, more flexible, and more able to live the life they actually want.
What working with me looks like
We start with a free 45-minute consultation as a conversation about what brings you to therapy, what you're hoping to work on, and whether we feel like a good fit. There's no commitment from this; it's just a way to see whether the work makes sense to start.
If we begin: sessions are usually weekly to start, sixty minutes, in person in Neukölln or online. We figure out together what you most want to work on and how, and adjust as we go. Some sessions are more structured and skills-focused; others are more exploratory. The shape of the work follows what's actually useful, not a fixed protocol.
The goal isn't to keep you in therapy indefinitely. It's to help you build skills, awareness, and a different relationship with what's hard so that, over time, you need me less.
