Therapy Between Two Languages: On Being Romanian in the UK
You're sitting with a therapist, trying to explain how you feel, and you realise you need to start three layers back.
Before you can talk about your mother, you need to explain what mothers are like where you come from. Before you can describe the guilt, you need to explain the cultural weight of family obligation. Before your pain makes sense, you need to translate not just words but entire ways of seeing the world.
By the time you've finished setting the scene, the session is half over. And something has been lost — the texture, the feeling, the thing that lives in Romanian but dies in English.
I'm Romanian. I trained and practice in the UK. I offer therapy in both languages. And I understand, from the inside, what it means to exist between two cultures.
What gets lost in translation
There are phrases that don't translate. Feelings that have names in Romanian and no equivalent in English. Ways of describing family, obligation, shame, love that carry cultural weight a dictionary can't capture.
Dor — that particular longing for home, for something lost, for a place or time you can't return to. There's no single English word for it.
The specific weight of "ce-or zice lumea" — what will people say — and how it shapes choices in ways that don't quite translate to British social anxiety.
The particular relationship between Romanian parents and adult children — the closeness, the expectations, the guilt — that sits differently from British norms of independence.
When you try to explain these things in English, to someone who doesn't know the culture, something evaporates. You find yourself simplifying, adjusting, translating feelings into something that fits English categories. And the translation is never quite right.
This is exhausting. And it adds a layer of difficulty to therapy that many therapists don't understand.
The immigrant experience, unnamed
There's a particular texture to immigrant life that often goes unnamed in therapy.
The guilt of leaving. Parents who didn't understand why you had to go. The distance that opened up when you moved, and keeps opening.
The pressure to succeed. You came here for a reason. You're supposed to make something of it. Struggling feels like failure not just for yourself but for the sacrifice that got you here.
The complexity of belonging. Not quite Romanian anymore, not quite British either. Belonging fully to neither place. Children who don't speak Romanian, or speak it reluctantly. Realising slowly that home has split into two places.
The cultural gaps in relationships. A British partner who doesn't understand why your mother calls every day. Friends who don't understand the weight of obligations you carry. The sense of being slightly illegible to the people closest to you.
These experiences are common among Romanian people in the UK. They're rarely talked about in therapy, because therapy is usually offered by British therapists who don't know to ask.
Parenting between cultures
For Romanian parents raising children in the UK, there's a particular kind of disorientation.
Your child is becoming British in ways you didn't anticipate. Their Romanian is fading, or functional but awkward. They roll their eyes at things that feel important to you. They don't understand why you react the way you do.
You're caught between two parenting cultures. The way you were raised — close family, clear expectations, strong obligations — meets British norms of independence and emotional distance. Neither feels quite right. You're making it up as you go.
And underneath, often, there's loss. The grandparents who aren't present. The cousins who are strangers. The childhood your children will never have because it only exists in another country.
The second generation
For those who grew up in the UK with Romanian parents, the experience is different but equally complex.
You're British, mostly. You went to British schools, have British friends, think in English. But something marks you as different — a name that needs explaining, parents who do things differently, a home life that doesn't quite match what you see in friends' houses.
The in-between identity. Not foreign enough to claim the immigrant experience, not British enough to feel fully unmarked. Cultural references you don't quite get, from both sides.
The relationship with Romania itself is complicated. A country you know from childhood visits, from stories, from food — but that isn't really yours. A language you speak with family but might not write, or that you understand but respond to in English.
And sometimes, the hidden resentment. At parents who wanted you to be Romanian in ways that didn't fit. At the difference that marked you. At the gap that opened up.
Why language matters in therapy
There's a reason I offer therapy in Romanian as well as English.
Some things can only be said in Romanian. The exact shade of a feeling, the particular dynamic with a parent, the phrase from childhood that still echoes. When you can say it in your first language, something shifts. You're not translating. You're just speaking.
Beyond the words, there's the recognition. I understand the cultural context without explanation. I know what you mean when you describe family dynamics. I've felt the pull between cultures. You don't have to spend half the session setting the scene.
This isn't about rejecting English or idealising Romanian. Many of my Romanian-speaking clients move fluidly between languages in session. Sometimes the English word is better. Sometimes the Romanian one is.
It's about having the choice. Having a therapist who can follow you wherever the language goes.
What I offer
I'm a Romanian-born therapist practicing in Colchester. I speak Romanian fluently — it's my first language — and I offer therapy in Romanian, English, or a mix of both.
I understand the immigrant experience because I've lived it. I understand the pull between cultures, the family dynamics, the particular loneliness of being between two worlds.
I work with Romanian-speaking adults and young adults — both first-generation immigrants and those who grew up here with Romanian families. Many of my women clients navigate these cultural complexities alongside other challenges. I offer in-person sessions in Colchester and online sessions across the UK (for those aged 16 and over).
This isn't about providing therapy "for Romanians" as if we're all the same. It's about offering something that's often hard to find: a therapist who speaks your language, in both senses.
Terapie în limba română
Dacă preferi să citești asta în română: ofer terapie în română pentru adulți și tineri din UK. Sesiunile pot fi în persoană la Colchester sau online. Prima convorbire de 15 minute este gratuită — o ocazie să vorbim scurt și să vedem dacă ar fi util să lucrăm împreună.
Nu trebuie să-ți alegi o limbă. Putem vorbi în română, în engleză, sau amândouă — cum ți se pare mai natural.
If this resonates
I work with Romanian-speaking clients, offering therapy in person in Colchester and online across the UK for those aged 16 and over.
If you've been looking for a therapist who speaks Romanian — or who understands what it means to exist between two cultures — I'd be glad to hear from you.
The first step is a free 15-minute call. We can speak in whichever language feels more comfortable. It's a chance to talk briefly, ask questions, and see if working together might help.
You don't have to keep translating yourself.