It has become commonplace and is often taken for granted in today's world that professionals frequently relocate across the country and across the world. From personal and professional experience, I understand how this can be simultaneously incredibly enriching and also challenging. Given how ubiquitous these moves have become, it can often come as a real surprise just how much of an impact they can have on one's overall wellbeing. To be uprooted from one's network of family and friends, to have to navigate a foreign landscape daily, and to communicate in a language that is not one's mother tongue actually requires a great deal of work and mental energy.
Transitioning to a new culture or region can impact one's sense of identity in very profound ways, providing new opportunities for growth and expansion of self, as well as the loss of former ways of being or relating to others connected with the home environment. It can be challenging when one is working hard to adjust, and often tired from the constant work of adapting to a new ecosystem, to be open to all of the positive opportunities that are available in the Bay Area.
Relocation can also have profound impacts on spouses and children when a couple of family relocates together. It is often more challenging for the spouse in these situations to establish a network of meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose and belonging. Children and teens are often the most profoundly impacted when there is a move, and are excruciatingly sensitive to how the parents are doing and whether they are stressed. Proving psychotherapy to your child or teen can help insulate him or her to mitigate the challenging aspects of a move and give an outlet for managing frustrations, disappointments and challenges that inevitably come up from time to time. It can be much easier for a young person to talk with a neutral outsider about these issues than it is to talk to parents.
Psychotherapy can bolster the process of identity development, cultural adaptation, and help strengthen one's ability to navigate new social situations, and find one's place in the exciting, complex, diverse milieu of the San Francisco Bay Area/ Silicon Valley.