EXPATS & CULTURAL IDENTITY
Living between countries often means living between selves. Even when the move was chosen, even when life abroad is full and good, something in the psyche can remain slightly unmoored, as if part of you is still catching up to where your body now lives. Many expats describe a sense of being both inside and outside at once, deeply engaged with their new world yet never fully claimed by it. There can be exhilaration in that freedom, but also a quiet ache. A perpetual homesickness.
For some, the dislocation shows up subtly. Certain feelings may seem out of sync with the people around you, or difficult to explain to friends and family back home. Identity can become fluid in ways that feel confusing — more adaptable, but also less anchored.
There may be questions about who you are here versus who you were before, and whether those two selves can coexist. Others feel a guilt or loyalty conflict: the sense that flourishing abroad means betraying something left behind.
Several clinicians at Atrium are expats themselves, and understand from lived experience how complex these inner negotiations can be.
Therapy for expats often begins with story — not just the story of why you moved, but the story of who you have been in each place. The self you were shaped by your homeland doesn't disappear; it travels with you. And yet the environment you live in now shapes you too, sometimes in ways that feel liberating and other times in ways that feel disorienting.
Several clinicians at Atrium are expats themselves, and understand from lived experience how complex these inner negotiations can be.
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