An English-speaking counsellor for women in Geneva

I am an English-speaking counsellor offering online sessions to women in Geneva, by secure video from the UK. I work in a person-centred way, at your pace and without a fixed agenda. I am a trainee counsellor and BACP student member, working under supervision, and each 50-minute session costs £45, charged in pounds. It is not part of Swiss healthcare.

Expat and international life in Geneva

Geneva's official statistics office puts the share of foreign nationals in the canton at 42% for 2025. For comparison, the canton of Zurich reported 29% at the end of 2025. Part of the difference comes from something few other cities have.

In 2024, 38 international organisations were based in the canton under agreements with the Swiss government. Together with the permanent missions that represent governments to them, they employed 33,024 people. Some of those staff arrived with a partner, and often children, who came too.

If that describes you, your residence permit may be a Ci permit. The State Secretariat for Migration issues it to spouses and to children under 25 of staff at intergovernmental organisations and foreign representations, and it allows paid work. Its validity is tied to the main holder's posting. That one line explains a lot about how life in Geneva can feel: your right to be here, and to work here, rests on someone else's contract.

Finding an English-speaking counsellor or therapist in Geneva

Geneva is a French-speaking canton, and that is the language of its hospitals, forms and helplines outside the evening English line. You may manage perfectly well in daily life. Still, when it comes to talking about something painful, the language you think in matters. My guide on how to find a therapist abroad covers what to ask a local practice about language, fees and waiting times.

The Swiss system for paying for psychotherapy changed in July 2022. Psychotherapists who are admitted by the canton can now bill basic insurance, as long as a doctor has ordered the treatment and it is for an illness. Each order covers up to 15 sessions. In a June 2026 evaluation, the Federal Office of Public Health said access had tended to improve but that long waiting times persist in some areas.

That model fits a resident who has Swiss basic insurance and a GP. It may not fit you if you are covered instead by an international organisation's own health scheme, if your posting is short, or if you are not sure yet whether what you need is treatment at all. Some people in Geneva are not looking for a diagnosis. They want an hour a week to think out loud in English with someone who has no connection to their partner's office or their children's school.

That is the gap online counselling with me can fill, within clear limits. I am a UK trainee counsellor. I am not a Swiss psychotherapist and I don't use that title. If you need psychotherapy as a health treatment, your GP or a psychiatrist in Geneva is the place to start.

What it can be like to be the one who came along

International Geneva can be a generous place to land, full of people from everywhere. It can also be a place where you are introduced as someone's spouse, where friendships end when postings do, and where you feel you are supposed to be grateful.

Some things you might be carrying, quietly:

• Loss of a professional identity. You may have had a career, a title and colleagues who knew your work. Now you are building something from nothing, or waiting. The page on the trailing spouse experience goes into this.
• Constant goodbyes. When the people around you are all on fixed-term postings, it can start to feel pointless to get close to anyone. I write more about this on the expat loneliness page, and the three-question loneliness test is a quiet way to notice how you are doing.
• The pressure to look fine. You live somewhere beautiful by any measure, and you still feel flat. That gap can bring its own shame.
• Being far from family. Especially if your family expects you to be the one who calls, sends money or comes home when someone is ill. The page on family duty and self is about that pull.

Imagine sitting in a parents' evening, nodding along in French you only half follow, and realising you haven't said anything true about how you feel to anyone in weeks. If something like that is familiar, it is a reasonable reason to want to talk.

How online therapy in English works from Geneva

We meet by secure video for 50 minutes. You need a private space and a stable connection. I am independent of every organisation in Geneva, and the guide is online counselling confidential? explains how your privacy is protected and where its limits are.

Geneva is one hour ahead of the UK for practically the whole year, so an evening session in Geneva is late afternoon or early evening for me. The booking page shows the time zone, so please check it when you choose a slot.

The fee is £45 per session, charged in pounds. A limited number of lower-cost places are available for students, trainees and people on a low income. You can read more on the fees page and book a session when you are ready. If you want to understand online counselling a little better first, try is online counselling right for me?, or browse my checked list of free mental health resources for expats and migrants.

Who I am, and why my fee is lower

I am Michelle Fernando, a trainee person-centred counsellor and a BACP student member. I work under regular clinical supervision while completing an MSc in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Keele University. I am based in Shrewsbury, UK, and I have also worked as a counsellor in Sri Lanka.

Culture and context sit at the centre of how I think about distress. Identity is often relational, especially for women from collectivist families, and I don't assume that the "right" answer is always more independence. My job is to understand how things are for you and to trust your sense of what you need.

Being a trainee is why my fee is lower, and I would rather you know that from the outset.

When online counselling isn't the right support

Please don't wait for a session if you are in danger or thinking about ending your life. Call 112 or 144, Heart2Heart on 0800 143 000 between 6pm and 11pm, or La Main Tendue on 143 at any hour. My page of verified mental health and women's support services in Geneva lists local emergency and support services in more detail.

I also don't work with psychosis, eating disorders, specialist trauma treatment, addiction, couples or children. A doctor in Geneva can refer you to the right specialist. For more on finding help in English across the country, see the Switzerland overview and my list of mental health helplines in Switzerland.