Counseling for Missionaries, Aid Workers, and Expats | Reentry, Reverse Culture Shock, and Cross-Cultural Transition | California and Texas
Online Therapy and In-Person Counseling in Petaluma, CA for Global Workers and Returning Expats
You’ve lived a life most people can’t quite picture.
You’ve worked in places that changed you, in ways you’re still discovering. You’ve witnessed things that don’t translate easily into conversation over dinner back home. You’ve built deep community in one world, then had to leave it. And now you’re back, and something about being here feels harder than you expected.
Maybe you thought coming home would feel like relief. Instead it feels disorienting, lonely, or flat in a way that’s hard to explain to people who weren’t there. Maybe you’re carrying trauma from what you witnessed in the field. Maybe your marriage is strained from years of high-pressure cross-cultural living. Maybe you’re not sure who you are outside of the role that defined you overseas.
Whatever you’re navigating, you don’t have to figure it out alone, and you don’t have to explain yourself from the beginning to someone who has never left their own culture.
Who This Is For
This page is for anyone who has lived and worked outside their home culture in a sustained, meaningful way, including:
- Missionaries and ministry leaders returning from or preparing for the field
- International aid workers and NGO staff
- Foreign service professionals and their families
- Military families living overseas or returning home
- Expats and global professionals navigating cross-cultural transitions
- Third Culture Kids (TCKs) and Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs) processing their unique experience of growing up between worlds
Whether your work was faith-based or secular, short-term or career-long, you’ve navigated a kind of complexity that leaves a mark. This is a space where that experience is understood, not explained.
What Global Workers Often Carry
Living and working cross-culturally is meaningful and it is also genuinely hard. Some of what you may be navigating:
Reverse culture shock and reentry struggles Coming home is supposed to be the easy part. For many global workers, it’s one of the hardest. The culture you grew up in can feel foreign, superficial, or overwhelming after years abroad. People who love you don’t quite understand why you’re struggling. You might not fully understand it yourself yet.
Trauma and PTSD from overseas experiences You may have witnessed poverty, violence, disease, or loss at a scale that would be difficult for anyone to process. You may have experienced evacuations, threats, or crisis situations. You may have absorbed the suffering of the people you served in ways that are still showing up in your body and your daily life.
Compassion fatigue and burnout Global work often involves giving yourself fully in environments with limited resources, high need, and little support. The cost of that kind of sustained care accumulates over time and doesn’t simply resolve when you return home.
Identity disruption and loss of purpose When your work, your community, your daily rhythms, and your sense of calling were all located in one place, coming home can feel like losing everything at once. Who are you outside of that role? What comes next? These are real questions that deserve real support.
Marriage and relationship strain Cross-cultural living puts unique pressure on relationships. Couples who served together may have processed their experiences very differently. Those who served apart may be navigating significant distance even now that they’re back in the same place.
Third Culture Kid challenges If you raised children overseas, or if you are someone who grew up as a TCK yourself, the experience of belonging everywhere and nowhere is its own kind of complexity. TCKs and ATCKs often carry unprocessed grief, identity questions, and relational patterns that trace directly back to a childhood lived between worlds.
Reentry Counseling and Reverse Culture Shock Therapy
Reentry is one of the most underestimated transitions a global worker faces. Research consistently shows that the most commonly reported challenges for returning missionaries and global workers include the culture shock of initial reentry, grief and homesickness, loneliness, loss of identity, and cultural frustration. Missio Dei Journal
You may have been better prepared for leaving than for coming back. Many global workers are.
Therapy can help you:
- Process the grief of leaving a place, a community, and a role that mattered deeply to you
- Make sense of the reverse culture shock and disorientation you’re experiencing
- Reconnect with your identity outside of the role that defined you overseas
- Work through trauma or difficult experiences from the field
- Rebuild your marriage and family relationships after the unique pressures of cross-cultural living
- Find clarity and direction for your next season of life
- Support your children as they navigate their own reentry and TCK experience
EMDR and Evidence-Based Therapy for Global Workers
For global workers carrying trauma from overseas experiences, Marty specializes in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), one of the most well-researched and effective therapies available for trauma and PTSD. EMDR works at the level where overseas trauma often lives, in the nervous system and the body, not just in conscious memory.
Marty is EMDR Certified through EMDRIA and brings more than 10 years of clinical experience to this work.
Depending on your goals, therapy may also incorporate:
- CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
- Emotionally focused couples work
- Insight-oriented and experiential approaches
- Grief and loss processing
Every approach is tailored to your specific experience and what you need most.
Work With Someone Who Has Been There
Marty brings something to this work that is genuinely rare: he has lived it.
He served internationally as a therapist, pastor, and chaplain with a global hospital organization in Africa, working in cross-cultural environments that gave him a firsthand understanding of the unique stressors, joys, losses, and transitions of overseas life. He knows what it means to build a life and a community in another culture. He knows what it means to come back.
You won’t have to spend your sessions explaining the basics of cross-cultural living to someone who has only read about it. Marty understands the landscape from the inside.
[Learn more about Marty and his background →]
A More Intensive Option for Reentry and Trauma Work
Sometimes weekly therapy isn’t the right pace for where you are, especially when you’re navigating a significant transition or carrying years of unprocessed experience.
Therapy Intensives A focused 3-hour, 6-hour, or 2-day therapeutic experience available online or in person. Ideal for concentrated reentry work, trauma processing, or couples work without waiting months to build momentum. [Learn more about Therapy Intensives →]
Weekend Therapy Retreats at Wildwood Ranch A private Friday through Sunday retreat at Wildwood Ranch in Garden Valley, California. For global workers who need to fully step away and do sustained, immersive therapeutic work in a peaceful and restorative setting. [Learn more about Weekend Retreats →]
What to Expect
Step 1: A Free Consultation Call A brief, no-cost phone call to talk through what you’re experiencing and whether working together is the right fit. No pressure, no commitment, just an honest conversation.
Step 2: Personalized Treatment Planning Therapy begins with understanding your specific experience, history, and goals. Whether you’re just back from the field or years into a difficult reentry, the work starts where you are.
Step 3: Ongoing Therapeutic Support Weekly or biweekly sessions, online throughout California and Texas or in person in Petaluma, California, focused on helping you process what you’ve been carrying and find your footing again.
Common Questions About Global Worker Counseling
Do I have to be a missionary to work with Marty on these issues? Not at all. This work is equally relevant for secular aid workers, NGO staff, foreign service professionals, military families, and anyone who has lived cross-culturally in a sustained way. The experience of reentry and cross-cultural transition doesn’t belong exclusively to faith-based workers.
What if I’m still overseas and need support now? Online therapy is available throughout California and Texas. If you’re currently overseas and considering support, reach out through the consultation to discuss options.
Is EMDR available for overseas trauma? Yes, and it’s often one of the most effective approaches for the kind of trauma that accumulates through cross-cultural work. Extended sessions allow for deeper processing without the time constraints of a standard therapy hour.
Can Marty work with couples who served overseas together? Yes. Couples counseling is available for partners navigating the relational impact of cross-cultural living, reentry stress, and the unique dynamics of having built a life together in another culture. [Learn more about Couples Therapy →]
What about Third Culture Kids and Adult TCKs? Yes. If you are an adult TCK processing your own experience, or a parent supporting a child through reentry, this is work Marty is experienced in and equipped to support.
My reentry was years ago. Is it too late to address this? Not at all. Many global workers don’t seek support until years after returning, often because they didn’t realize what they were experiencing had a name or could be treated. Wherever you are in your reentry journey, support is available.
You Gave Yourself to the World. Now It’s Time to Come Home to Yourself.
The transition back isn’t always what people expect. But it doesn’t have to stay this hard.
With the right support, it’s possible to process what you’ve been carrying, reconnect with who you are, and find your footing in this next season of life.