An arc
Enough to name what is going on properly, understand where it comes from, and change one thing. Good for a specific situation: a decision, a transition, a relationship, a period that knocked you sideways.
Counselling · Utrecht · five or ten sessions
Somewhere to put the things you have been carrying quietly.
Queer-affirming counselling in Utrecht, in English, in packages of five or ten sessions. Your identity is where the conversation starts from. It is never the thing being examined for legitimacy.
People come to me about coming out and about deciding not to. About gender, and about not being sure yet. About relationships, chosen family and the ones you were born into. About the specific loneliness of building a life in a country where you have no history.
And about sex, intimacy and desire, which get proper space here rather than a nervous detour.
You do not need a reason that sounds serious enough.
What affirmative care means here
In practice, it is a list of things I will not do.
Plenty of practices list LGBTQIA+ as one specialism among twenty. In practice that often means you spend your first three sessions explaining yourself. Here is what affirmative means concretely:
- I will not treat your orientation or gender as the cause of the problem unless you say it is
- I will not ask you to justify a label, or to hold one before you are ready
- I will use your name and pronouns without commentary, and get it right
- I will not need the basics of queer and trans life explained to me before we can begin
- I will take the discrimination you describe as real rather than as a possible misreading
- I will not treat being closeted, ambivalent or in-between as a failure of courage
How the packages work
Five sessions to open something, ten to work it through.
Both are paid in advance so you know the total from the start and neither of us is watching a meter. Which one to choose is part of the intro call.
Depth
Enough to get to patterns rather than episodes. Better when what you are dealing with is long-standing, tangled with family or identity, or has followed you across more than one country.
Sessions are fifty minutes, usually every one or two weeks, in person in Utrecht or online. If we finish the package and you want to continue, we agree a new one. Single sessions are also possible, at the full rate, if a package is not right for you yet.
Sexuality & intimacy
Sexological counselling, inside honest limits.
Sexuality is a named focus of this practice, not an awkward add-on. That covers desire and its absence, intimacy after a move, a breakup or a coming-out, sexual self-esteem, the gap between the sex you have and the sex you want, how orientation and gender show up in your actual relationships, and how to say any of this out loud to a partner.
To be precise about what this is: sexological counselling here means structured, talk-based support and education. It is not a medical or psychological intervention. I do not diagnose or treat sexual dysfunction, pain or any other medical condition. For those, the right route is your huisarts or an NVVS-registered sexologist, and if that is what your situation needs, helping you get there is part of the work.
Honest limits
What this is, and what it is not.
Counselling is structured, confidential support for working through what is happening in your life. It is not psychological treatment, psychotherapy or medical care, and I am not a psychologist or a psychotherapist. Those titles are legally protected in the Netherlands and I do not hold them.
That distinction matters for you in three ways. Counselling is not usually reimbursed by Dutch health insurance. It is not the right route for a formal diagnosis, for medication, or for conditions that need specialist treatment. And if what you are dealing with sits outside what counselling can responsibly hold, the right thing is for me to say so early and help you find the appropriate care rather than to keep the appointment.
If you are in immediate danger or in crisis, contact your huisarts, call the out-of-hours huisartsenpost, or call 112. In the Netherlands you can also reach 113 Zelfmoordpreventie free, day or night, on 113 or 0800-0113.
Common questions
Before you book.
Do I have to be out to work with you?
No. A good number of the conversations I have are with people who are not out, are out to some people only, or are still working out what they would even be coming out as. None of that is a prerequisite.
Can we work in a language other than English?
English and Italian, both fluently. My Dutch is conversational, so I do not offer sessions in Dutch.
Is it confidential?
Yes. What you say stays between us, apart from narrow legal exceptions around immediate serious danger, which are written into the agreement you get before the first session. I keep minimal notes and store them securely under Dutch and EU data protection law. See the privacy statement.
What if I cannot afford it?
Say so on the intro call. A set number of places in every package are held at a reduced rate, with no means-testing paperwork. See rates and sliding scale.
Online or in person?
Either. In person in Utrecht, or online anywhere. Some people alternate. If in-person is difficult because of energy, distance or safety, online is not a lesser option.
The first conversation is thirty minutes.
Online, €[00], no obligation, and an honest answer about whether I am the right person for what you are dealing with.