Couples therapy for international Lisbon
Moving abroad is one of the great stress tests of a marriage, and the brochures never say so. In Lisbon I see the same pattern again and again, online from my London practice: couples who arrived with the dream intact and found, a year in, that one of them is living it and the other is only accompanying it. The friction lands on money, children, in-laws or time, but those are rarely the real subject. Underneath are the questions every couple carries: recognition, security, power, the fear of being abandoned or engulfed, replayed now on foreign ground where the usual supports are a flight away.
How the work goes
The approach is analytic and Jungian: we work at both levels at once, what is happening between you here and now, and what each of you brings from your own history into the pattern. A neutral, confidential space where what has never been said can finally be said, with a third person trained to hold both sides without taking either. Sessions are in English, in French, or in the mixture bilingual couples actually speak. For what an affair is really saying when that is the crisis, see The Affair as Symptom; for the fear that drives the clinging and the checking, see The Fear of Abandonment.
Practicalities
Sessions are by secure video on Lisbon time, with Dr Philippe Jacquet, Jungian analyst with twenty-five years of experience, from his Harley Street practice in London. In person in London when you travel. A first conversation is confidential and without commitment: book here.
Some couples search for marriage counselling in Lisbon rather than couples therapy; the work is the same, whatever name it carries: two people, the pattern between them, and a professional trained to change it.
Dr Philippe Jacquet is a UKCP registered psychotherapist, a Jungian analyst and an HCPC registered art psychotherapist, with twenty-five years of clinical practice. His Doctorate of Professional Practice at the University of Essex examined male eating disorders from the perspective of analytical psychology. Registration can be checked on either public register.
How the work is delivered from here
All international sessions are by secure video, in English or French. Online therapy is not a reduced version of consulting room work: it is the format that lets weekly work survive living abroad, travelling, or relocating. Sessions run in United Kingdom hours, which suits most regions, and if your time zone makes none of it workable, say so when you enquire rather than assuming it rules you out.
For clinicians and treatment services
Dr Jacquet supervises clinical teams in private residential addiction treatment and in a private psychiatric hospital. For treatment centres, psychiatric units and group practices looking for external clinical supervision, including in places where no supervisor of this seniority is available locally, team supervision is also delivered by video. For individual practitioners, see clinical supervision.
Common questions
Is couples therapy available in English in Lisbon?
Yes: Dr Philippe Jacquet works with international couples in Lisbon and across Portugal online by secure video, in English, in French, and with bilingual couples in a mixture of both.
What do expat couples bring to therapy?
The move itself, very often: one partner chose Portugal more than the other; one has a life here and the other only a view. Add distance from family, the loss of old roles, and the intensity of being each other's whole world, and solid marriages start to strain. This is normal, and it is workable.
What if we are considering separating?
Couples therapy is not a guarantee the relationship survives, and it would be dishonest to promise that. It creates the conditions for both people to understand what is truly happening between them, and then decide with clarity. Sometimes that strengthens the marriage; sometimes it allows a separation with less damage, which matters even more abroad, far from every support.
How do sessions work from Portugal?
By secure video, on Lisbon time, with both partners together (and individual sessions where useful). In-person sessions are possible at Harley Street when you are in London.