Expat Psychologist Leiden
A university city with an international heart — psychological support for students, researchers, and expats in Leiden
Leiden is a city built around its university — one of the oldest in Europe, and still very much the heartbeat of the place. Walk through the centre and you’ll hear a dozen languages, see bikes piled three-deep outside lecture halls, and pass research institutes working on everything from astronomy to vaccines. It’s a small city with a remarkably international pulse.
Since 2009, Expat Psychologist has supported people navigating exactly this kind of life — students far from home for the first time, researchers on short-term contracts trying to build something stable, and expats who landed in Leiden almost by accident and ended up staying.
Our Leiden practice works from a foundation in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, with a flexible, integrative approach — because a first-year exchange student, a postdoc three years into a research contract, and a partner who followed someone here for work all need quite different things, even if the underlying feelings (loneliness, pressure, uncertainty) often overlap.
A city of in-betweens
Leiden has a particular rhythm: people arrive for a few months, a few years, sometimes longer than planned — and the in-between feeling that comes with that is real. Common things that bring people to us include culture shock and homesickness, academic pressure and burnout, relationship strain when one partner’s career brought you both here, loneliness despite being surrounded by people, and the disorientation of not knowing how long you’ll stay.
What we offer
Individual therapy, couples counseling, ADHD and ASD assessments, and dedicated support for international students — in English, with several psychologists also offering other languages. Sessions take place in person at our office in Leiden (5th floor, Crown Business Centre) or online.
We’ve been here before — some of us, literally
Several of our psychologists have lived the international-student or early-career-researcher experience firsthand. We know what it’s like to start over somewhere new, more than once. That’s not just empathy from a distance — it shapes how we work. If something feels off, or you’re navigating a transition and want someone to talk to, we’re here.
