Counselling for Life Transitions

What Is a Life Transition?

A life transition is any change that alters your daily life, your role or how you see yourself. One model used in counselling, developed by Nancy Schlossberg, sorts transitions into three kinds (Anderson and colleagues, 2012). Some are changes you expected, such as a planned move, and some are changes you did not expect, such as a sudden job loss. The third kind is the non-event: a change you expected that never came. Even a change you chose can bring stress, low mood or a sense of no longer knowing who you are.

Common Concerns

People come to counselling during or after changes such as:

• moving to a new country, or returning home after years away
• starting, losing or leaving a job
• the end of a relationship, or the start of a new one
• becoming a parent
• the death of someone close
• a change in your health or in the health of someone close
• retirement

Adjusting to Life in a New Country

If you are looking for a therapist for expats in Thailand or Myanmar, sessions are in English and take place online. Moving abroad can bring stress from several directions at once. A review of 45 studies on working abroad found stress linked to communication, cultural differences at work, daily life, relationships with family and colleagues, money, and social inequality (Doki and colleagues, 2018).

Counselling can help with:

• feeling isolated or far from family and friends
• a partner or family adjusting at a different pace from you
• work pressure in an unfamiliar culture
• not feeling at home in either place
• planning a move home, or settling back in after one

The same applies if you are from Myanmar or Thailand and returning after years abroad, or moving between the two countries.

Teaching abroad brings its own pressures, from contract decisions to repeated goodbyes. Counselling for teachers covers them.

How Sessions Work

Sessions are online and last 60 or 90 minutes. They give you room to make sense of what has changed, what you have lost and gained, and what you want next. The number of sessions depends on what you bring and is reviewed together.

Methods Used

• Narrative therapy, for finding a story about the change that fits who you are now.
• CBT techniques and mindfulness, for handling worry and stress day to day.
• Somatic work, for noticing how stress shows up in the body.
• Parts work, for when part of you wants the change and part of you does not.

Fees

Couples and families are the same price.