Elisabeth Herrera Asencio
I was once the outsider at that table. Today I sit on the other side.
I still remember the very first couple I worked with as a counsellor. They came to me regularly for six months, and honestly, I had no idea whether I was doing the right thing.
Six months later I saw the two of them by chance in the street. They were holding hands. They didn’t notice me at all, and there was no need for them to. Two people who had found their way back to each other. At that moment I knew: this is what I want to do.
I grew up in the Waldviertel, in a life that seemed all mapped out. A house in the countryside, a family, a dog. At some point it started to feel too small. I applied for a scholarship abroad. My marks weren’t good enough for Britain, so I ended up in Galicia, with barely any Spanish and nowhere to live. The sign-up page for the Spanish course was only in Galician. It was pure survival. And the beginning of everything.
I taught for fifteen years. In Austria, abroad, at the Vienna International School, at a technical college for mechanical engineering, in adult education. At some point I wanted to get closer to people. To truly walk alongside them, not just usher them through. So I trained as a counsellor. I thought about giving up more than once. It hardly seemed sensible.
Then suddenly, there was a couple sitting in front of me.
It was pure survival.
And the beginning of everything.
What I know from experience
I was in an intercultural relationship for more than seventeen years. We gave up everything. Country, career, home. And more than once. I know what it’s like to start again from scratch in a foreign country. I know the imbalance that creeps in when one person feels responsible for everything and the other would do things differently but can’t, because the system leaves no room for it. I got through bureaucratic hurdles that seemed impossible. I shuttled between Austria and Spain with two children. When the economic crisis hit, we started all over again.
This relationship didn’t last forever. Many people call that failure. I don’t. It carried us for seventeen years. Then what we wanted from life changed. That’s something else entirely.
Today I also know how a separation can happen without losing what was good in it. We no longer live together, and yet we still bring up two intercultural children together. I’ve been through just about every stage of a relationship myself. Falling in love, building something, deepening it, struggling, letting go. And what comes afterwards. Separation is no longer a taboo for me.
What I’d have needed back then was someone with an intercultural perspective. Someone who understood what we struggled with every day, and could accept it for what it was, without trying to fix it. Someone who would say: this isn’t going to change, so how do you want to live with it? Most counsellors simply had no frame of reference for the reality we were living.
My relationship carried us for seventeen years. I don’t call that failure.
– THE TURNING POINT
Today I’m the person I would have needed back then.
How I work
I take a differentiation-based approach, in the tradition of David Schnarch. I ask questions that can be uncomfortable, and I say aloud what everyone in the room is thinking but no one dares to say. The most important question isn’t one I put to you as a couple, but to each of you on your own. It isn’t ‘What’s wrong with your relationship?’ but ‘Who do you really want to be?’
My counselling has a clear framework. A clear beginning, a goal we agree on together, and an ending we keep in sight from the very start. That’s deliberate. I don’t want you sitting with me for years. I want you to reach the point where you can manage on your own what you can’t manage right now. And if life throws something your way further down the line, I’m here. Many people come back after months or years for a single session. Some simply to look after the relationship, with nothing actually wrong. The door stays open.
Who do you really want to be?
Once, a woman sat in front of me, sobbing. Her husband wanted to leave her, she said, because she was a bad person. I asked:
‘Are you really a bad person?’
A long pause. Then: ‘No.’
From that moment on, real work became possible. Sometimes a single sentence is enough to rearrange everything.
What I’m not
I’m not a referee. If you want me to take sides and tell you who’s right, you’ve come to the wrong person.
I have no ready-made solutions and no quick fixes. Not everyone gets on with that, and that’s fine. Most couples who come to me want to carry on together, and often they find a way. But sometimes it turns out that a conscious decision to separate is the more honest path. Even then, I stay by your side. Separating in a mature way is a task in its own right, and no one should have to do it alone.
Whether you come on your own or the two of you come together makes no difference. Change often begins the moment one person starts to look at things differently. I offer counselling in German, English and Spanish. We switch languages whenever it’s needed, and I pay attention to which language lets you truly say what you mean. Because you can only speak openly when you’re free to do it in your own language.
I’ve never once regretted landing in Galicia back then with barely a word of Spanish. It made me who I am today.
We don’t have to pretend.
Mag. Elisabeth Herrera Asencio · Certified Life & Social Counsellor (Austria) · Practice in Vienna
How the counselling works · The approach in detail · LinkedIn profile