About me | Angela Ponce Psychologist

About

International Psychologist in The Hague

Hello, I’m Angela — an international psychologist based in the Netherlands, offering therapy for young adults and adults both in-person in the serene Sweelinckplein area of The Hague, and online for those further away.

My Approach to Therapy

As a psychologist, I offer a safe space where you can slow down and gently turn inward — a place where deeper truths can emerge.

Many people arrive in therapy not only because of a specific event, but because of patterns that have become painful or exhausting. You may recognize yourself in experiences such as persistent shame — a quiet feeling of “not being enough.” Perfectionism may keep you constantly striving, afraid of mistakes, or overly self-critical.

In relationships, attachment difficulties can appear as fearing abandonment while also feeling uncomfortable with closeness. You might become overly accommodating, lose your own needs, feel anxious when someone pulls away, or repeatedly find yourself in relationships that feel unavailable or unstable.

You may also struggle with regulating emotions. Anger might feel overwhelming or explosive, or completely suppressed and turned inward as guilt or anxiety. Sadness may linger. Anxiety may feel constant and hard to calm.

Sometimes the body speaks what words cannot. Chronic stomach problems, digestive issues, headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, or ongoing pain without clear medical explanation can reflect long-term stress held in the nervous system.

I do not offer quick fixes or surface-level strategies. Therapy is a long-term process, meaning that meaningful change happens gradually, layer by layer. We explore the roots of patterns, build self-awareness, and practice new ways of relating — both to yourself and others — while reinforcing these shifts in daily life. Over time, the nervous system and mind learn to feel safer, and change becomes deeper, more sustainable, and transformative.

In practice, this means:

Exploring underlying causes: Rather than only addressing immediate problems, we look at the roots of your experiences — childhood influences, family patterns, past relational wounds, and cultural or societal pressures.
Building self-awareness: You slowly come to recognize your emotional responses, coping strategies, and unconscious patterns, giving you more choice over how you respond to life.
Practicing new ways of relating: Long-term work allows the nervous system and mind to experience safety repeatedly, helping you gradually form healthier relationships with yourself and others.
Integrating change into daily life: Insights gained in sessions are practiced and reinforced in everyday experiences, which deepens transformation and makes it sustainable.

Long-term therapy is not about rushing. It’s a steady, patient, and compassionate journey where growth, insight, and healing unfold over time — often in ways that surprise you, but that ultimately lead to profound and lasting change.

This work can be challenging, but it is also grounding and powerful. Together, we listen — to the spoken and the unspoken — and space begins to open for new understanding, growth, and ways of being.

An Integrative, Trauma-Informed Perspective

My approach to therapy is integrative, psychosomatic, and trauma-informed.

This means I consider the whole person — mind, body, and emotional history — and how past experiences, especially in childhood and family systems, shape the patterns we carry into adulthood. I draw on formal training in psychology, and trauma work, but also on lifelong influences: psychoanalysis, literature, music, poetry, photography, cinema, art, nature, yoga, and ayurveda. These sources inform the way I understand and support the human experience.

I blend Western scientific approaches with holistic perspectives from the East, honoring both the mind and the body in the healing process. In our work together, I pay attention not only to what is said, but also to what is felt, silenced, or hidden — through dreams, defenses, slips, or recurring patterns. These often reveal deeper layers of emotional truth that guide healing.

I also focus on the body, which carries experiences that the mind may not yet be able to express. Chronic tension, fatigue, digestive issues, or pain are often signs of stress and adaptation from earlier life experiences.

As Bessel van der Kolk , (b. 1943) – Dutch-American psychiatrist and trauma researcher explains, trauma is stored not only in memory, but in the nervous system and body.

Similarly, Gabor Maté (b. 1944) Hungarian-Canadian physician, author and trauma expert, highlights how emotional pain can accumulate over time, often through years of adaptation and self-abandonment.

Drawing from Donald Winnicott,(1896–1971), British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, I hold the therapeutic relationship as a “holding environment” — a safe, consistent, and attuned space where the self can gradually emerge, feel supported, and begin to trust. Through this relational and embodied process, we can restore connection, safety, and presence. In this way, therapy becomes a space where mind and body work together to create lasting change and help you feel more at home within yourself.

Relationship, Context, and Healing

Our earliest relationships shape the blueprint for how we connect later in life. Childhood experiences — especially those marked by neglect, unpredictability, emotional absence, or trauma — can quietly influence how safe we feel with others. We may long for closeness yet fear it at the same time. We may overadapt, withdraw, become hyper-independent, or find ourselves repeating painful relational patterns without fully understanding why.

Family trauma is often carried across generations. Unspoken losses, unresolved grief, migration, war, addiction, or emotional repression can echo through a family system, shaping beliefs about love, trust, vulnerability, and worth. What was never processed does not disappear; it is transmitted in subtle ways — through silence, tension, expectations, or the roles children learn to take on in order to maintain stability.

These adaptations are intelligent survival responses. They once protected us. But in adult relationships, they can become sources of conflict, distance, anxiety, or self-abandonment.

Because relational wounds happen in relationship, healing must also happen in relationship.

For some people, the therapeutic relationship may be the first experience of consistent emotional safety — a space where boundaries are clear, where feelings are not dismissed, and where vulnerability is met with steadiness rather than judgment. Within this secure and attuned connection, the nervous system can begin to soften. Over time, new relational experiences become possible — rooted not in survival, but in presence, trust, and choice.

Professional Path

Over the past 21 years, I’ve worked across diverse settings: human resources, physical rehabilitation in hospital environments, and clinical practice in Brazil and psychological guidance in The Netherlands. Through it all, one truth has remained: the real transformation begins beneath the surface.

Working with individuals one by one in a counselling setting, offering a focused and personalized space for growth. In this one-on-one work, I support people in exploring the deeper layers behind their challenges—patterns, emotions, beliefs, and experiences that often go unseen but shape daily life. Lasting change doesn’t come from quick fixes; it begins with understanding, insight, and intentional personal work.

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Brazil (2005), officially recognized in the Netherlands.

Additional qualifications in the most recent years, include:

Currently enrolled on the course Traumatic Stress Studies Certificate Program at Trauma Research Foundation, Boston USA, with an expected start in March 2026 and completion in October 2026
Psychopathology at NEEPHO, Brazil
Western Medicine (Medische Basiskennis) – Con Amore, Netherlands
EMDR – EMDR Centre London
Stress Management – Prof. Stephen Palmer, Centre for Stress Management, London
MBCT – Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
Ayurveda – International Ayurveda Medical Association (Spain / Netherlands)

I am a member of:

CAT – Collectief Alternatieve Therapeuten (BO nr.: 83142022-08-01)
European Society for Trauma and Dissociation
Psychosomatics monthly seminars at Institut Ipso Pierre-Marty - Centre d'enseignement à la psychosomatique, Paris

Personal Background

I was born in 1980 in São Paulo, Brazil, during the final years of the military dictatorship. I grew up in a city shaped by political repression, economic instability, and a pervasive sense of uncertainty. Early on, I saw how larger systems — politics, financial crises, social injustice — did not remain abstract forces; they entered homes, influenced relationships, and quietly shaped people’s inner worlds.

That awareness stayed with me and gradually became a guiding thread in my life, leading me to the work I do today: supporting individuals as they navigate both their internal landscape and the complex realities around them.

Silence also played a formative role in my childhood. It taught me to listen beyond words — to notice pauses, gestures, subtle shifts in tone and energy. Observation became a natural way of understanding the world. Over time, this way of perceiving evolved into my professional stance: grounded, attentive, and deeply respectful of the nuances that define each person’s experience.

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the deeper questions of being human —

what drives us,

what shapes us,

what constrains us,

and what allows us to grow.

Today, in my one-to-one counseling work, that lifelong curiosity translates into a steady, thoughtful presence. I work individually with each person, creating a space where complexity can be explored with honesty and care. I believe meaningful change begins with understanding — and that when someone feels truly heard, new possibilities naturally begin to emerge.

Practice Structure

My practice is private and fully independent, without reliance on government subsidies, which allows me to uphold the highest standards of ethics, autonomy, and respect for your well-being, ensuring that every decision is made with your best interests at heart.

I provide therapy in English and Portuguese.

You are welcome!