An English-speaking counsellor for women in Amsterdam, online

If you are looking for an English-speaking counsellor in Amsterdam, I offer online person-centred counselling for women by secure video. You book directly, there's no huisarts referral and no Dutch waiting list, and sessions cost £45. I'm a trainee counsellor working from the UK, under supervision, so this is private counselling rather than Dutch healthcare.

Finding an English-speaking therapist in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is an international city by any measure. The city's research office found that 17% of residents held only a non-Dutch nationality on 1 January 2019, up from about 1% in 1959. It's easy to assume English will carry you everywhere.

Mental health care is where that often stops working.

The Dutch system runs through your huisarts, your GP. Many practices have a mental health worker you can see for lighter problems. For anything beyond that, your GP refers you on, and that referral is what your insurer needs before it will pay for psychological care. Basic insurance usually covers part or all of it, as long as the provider has a contract with your insurer.

Then there's the wait. When the consumer programme Radar and the patients' organisation MIND looked at the Dutch care authority's data in February 2026, they found people waited an average of 24 weeks to start mental health treatment in 2025, three weeks longer than the year before. Even the first intake took about 14 weeks on average, against an agreed norm of four. Nearly half of all waits were longer than the 14-week maximum.

Some people go private to skip the queue. IamExpat notes that many private psychologists in the Netherlands don't have contracts with Dutch insurers, so you may end up paying yourself anyway. My guide on how to find a therapist abroad sets out the questions worth asking any practitioner, local or online.

Language adds its own layer. Your GP may well speak English. Whether the psychologist your GP refers you to does is a separate question, and the clinic letters, intake forms and insurer correspondence will probably arrive in Dutch. When you're already struggling, translating your own distress into a second language, or explaining it through a form, takes energy you may not have.

One more thing worth knowing: in the Netherlands, psychotherapeut and gezondheidszorgpsycholoog are protected titles. Only people registered in the Dutch BIG register may use them. I'm not, and I don't. What I offer is counselling, from the UK, alongside whatever you do or don't use locally.

What Amsterdam can feel like when you're a woman far from home

The city is friendly in a brisk, practical way. People are direct and busy, and a lot of social life runs on diaries planned weeks ahead. If you came for your own job, the office can carry you for a while. If you came because of a partner's job, you may have spent the first months on registration, a BSN, a bank account, a bike and a flat that cost far more than it should, and only then noticed how quiet the days had become.

You might recognise some of this:

• You have a lot of friendly acquaintances and nobody you'd ring at 10pm.
• Everyone at home assumes you're living the dream, so it feels ungrateful to say otherwise.
• You've stopped mentioning to your partner how lonely you are, because it turns into a conversation about whether moving was a mistake.
• You had a baby here, and the people who would normally have turned up with food and advice are a flight away.

None of this needs to be a crisis to be worth talking about. If you'd like a private way to check in with yourself first, try the three-question loneliness test. I write more about the partner side of this on the page about being the accompanying partner, and about the slow kind of isolation in expat loneliness.

If you grew up in a family or culture where your needs come after everyone else's, living abroad can bring that into sharper focus. Distance doesn't always loosen family duty. Sometimes it adds guilt to it. I write about that pull in family duty and a life of your own, and my free resources for living abroad collect checked self-help for life in a new country.

How online counselling with me works from Amsterdam

Amsterdam is one hour ahead of the UK all year round. An evening slot at 6pm in the UK is 7pm for you, which suits a lot of people who work during the day. Sessions are in English.

We meet by secure video. You join from wherever you feel private: a room with the door shut, a parked car, a quiet corner of a library booth. Each session is 50 minutes.

The fee is £45 per session, charged in pounds. There are no euro prices, so the amount you pay depends on your bank's exchange rate on the day. I keep a small number of low-cost places for students, trainees and people on a low income. The details, including my 48-hour cancellation policy, are on the fees page.

When you're ready, you can book a first session. If you'd like to ask something first, email hello@michellefernando.com and I'll reply within 48 hours.

The first session is a chance to see how it feels. You don't need to prepare anything or know exactly what you want to talk about. If it helps, here is what to expect in your first counselling session.

Who I am, and what this is not

I'm Michelle Fernando, a trainee person-centred counsellor and a BACP student member. I'm studying for an MSc in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Keele University, I work as a placement counsellor in Shrewsbury, and I see clients under regular clinical supervision. Before that, I worked as a placement counsellor at FPA Sri Lanka.

I work in a person-centred way. I won't diagnose you, set homework or tell you what to do with your life. I'll listen closely, try to understand how things are for you, and be honest with you. There's more about my background on the about page.

Sessions take place online from the UK. This is not Dutch healthcare. Your Dutch insurance won't reimburse it, I'm not part of the Dutch referral system, and I can't prescribe or diagnose. Because I'm a trainee, my fee is lower than a qualified counsellor's would be.

When to look for help in the Netherlands instead

Some things need support on the ground, in the Netherlands.

If you are thinking about ending your life, please contact 113 Zelfmoordpreventie, free, 24 hours a day by phone or chat. Its website has an English section, though it does not say whether counsellors speak English. If your life is in immediate danger, call 112. My page of support services in Amsterdam lists the out-of-hours GP line, the city's emergency psychiatry service and domestic violence support, and helplines across the Netherlands covers the national lines.

I also don't work with psychosis, eating disorders, addiction, trauma that needs specialist treatment, couples or children. If any of those is what's going on, your huisarts is the place to start, even if the wait feels long. You can keep talking to me while you wait, as long as we're both clear that I'm not your treatment.

If you're not sure whether counselling is the right kind of help, the page on online therapy for expats explains more about how I work with people living abroad. For an overview of the whole country, see English-speaking counselling in the Netherlands.