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Mandag 09:00 - 20:00 Tirsdag 09:00 - 20:00 Onsdag 09:00 - 20:00 Torsdag 09:00 - 20:00 Fredag 09:00 - 20:00

Flavia Cardas-Petrache, PhD - Psychotherapy

Hjem
Danmark
Copenhagen
Flavia Cardas-Petrache, PhD - Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy in English and Romanian, online and in Copenhagen, Denmark. My approach is humanistic and experiential.

I encourage a transparent communication with my clients regarding what works or doesn't work in the therapeutic process for them. I do believe that every person has at least one healthy part, untouched by trauma or difficulties and I professionally support individuals and couples in their process in a non-pathologizing manner. I approach every client in a personalized way, with care and deep respect to their uniqueness, using therapeutic methods from EFT (emotionally focused therapy), expressive therapies, IFS and dance/movement therapy. Education
2014 - present: Double Licensed Psychotherapist and Psychologist (in Denmark and Romania)
2020 - present: Professional training in Dance/movement therapy at the Institute of Dance and Movement Therapy Denmark
2018 - PhD in Psychology from the University of Bucharest (Romania)
2014 - 2019: Psychologist and Psychotherapist with private practice in Bucharest
2014 - MA Experiential Psychotherapy at the University of Bucharest

Experience
2019 - present: Psychotherapist and Psychologist in private practice in Copenhagen
2019 - present: Psychologist supervisor at Kompasset Foundation, Copenhagen
2014 - 2019: Psychotherapist and Psychologist in private practice in Bucharest
2014 - 2019: Assistant professor at the University of Bucharest
2014 - 2019: School psychologist
2014-2019: Trainer collaborator with HPDI

27/10/2025

The light in the eyes of a child or an adult when they feel safe is indescribable.

When the person in front of me allows themselves to be seen as they are, even in vulnerable moments (including when they are happy - because, for some of us, feeling and looking happy is an act of exposure), I am so grateful. I know then that my presence, attention, curiosity, calmness have reached that person and, in response, I receive the gift of authenticity back.

When my son giggles, cries or asks for a hug only to then want to do something else, I know that he feels safe to ask.

Asking for something we need is one of the proofs of trust in someone, of the courage to show ourselves as we are - needy, deeply human.

Asking is, at the same time, one of the most vulnerable acts we are subjected to since we are born, and our survival depends on how we ask and how the persons that we're dependent on understands our signals. Some of us stop asking - for help, love, the fulfillment of needs. We stop being in touch with our needs precisely because, perhaps, they were not fulfilled for a long time, constantly, especially when our life depended on the only person or people who had what we needed. And, thus, the repression of our own needs and demands began to be part of our survival strategy.

If you had to ask for something today, what would that need be? And who would you ask for it?

26/09/2025

I am beginning to understand even more the role of the defensive or protective mechanisms of the psycho-emotional system, as they are called.

When we are completely connected to an experience, to a person, to a relationship, we feel a whole spectrum of emotions - some more intense, others more difficult, others easier to contain or manage. But if we were constantly connected, our psyche and body would consume an extremely large amount of energy compared to having time to recover.

The protective mechanisms (protectors) of our system have the role of setting some boundaries to create space and for recharging or for conserving psycho-emotional energy. When they work, these mechanisms help us set the limits we need, as when the child around the age of 2 begins to develop these instances by saying "no" to everything. It is as if his internal system builds some doors, windows, sometimes walls of the inner fortress for the proper functioning of the emotional apparatus.

When they don't work for the person's benefit, these defense mechanisms turn on themselves, like cancer cells, to attack or sabotage the individual. They always have the good intention of taking care of the person, but sometimes this intention is put into action in a way that harms the person. For example, a person finds it difficult to express their needs and pleases everyone. Initially, the protective mechanism called "fawning" probably had a survival role in the person's life - as a child or teenager, if they didn't please their parents, they couldn't feel connected to them or were abandoned. At that time, this mechanism ensured the conservation of the person's energy and protected them from the pain they couldn't process on their own. Later, in adult life, this mechanism "remained small" and no longer suits them. Thus, pleasing as an adult brings them suffering, inauthentic relationships, and even greater consumption of psychic energy.

Other examples of protectors: criticism, perfectionism, control, doubt, caretaker, substance abuse, workaholism, impulsivity, destructiveness, etc.

To regulate these mechanisms, a lot of compassionate support is needed, a safe environment in which the person can be vulnerable, awareness of these mechanisms and their updating according to the person's current needs. This process involves a profound change, not only at the psycho-emotional level, but also of the nervous system and the body.

However, I would like to honor the importance of these protective mechanisms because without them, many of us, if not all, would not be able to survive, not only physically, but also emotionally. The work of these protectors is immense and energy-consuming, but once they understand the system they are part of, they are almost always willing to contribute positively to the proper functioning of the organism.

Who is trying to take care of you, inside?

17/09/2025

Our first teachers are those who take care of us: parents (natural or adoptive), grandparents, extended family members, foster parents, etc. They are the ones who shape our first perspectives on life, on relationships between people and on ourselves.

Some of us are more fortunate to have caregivers who are attentive, present, emotionally educated and more, so that they see us as we are, from the moment we are born and not as extensions of themselves. Or, more realistically, they constantly strive to see us, with as little contamination from their own person as possible.

Some caregivers consider the baby to be a person with their own temperament, their own personality in formation, their own needs and make an effort to bring clarity to these aspects, in order to know and respond to the baby's real needs.

Some caregivers believe that the baby is not an independent person, but a container into which it is necessary to pour the teachings of adults who "know better": what the child needs, what is good or bad for him/her, what the baby "should" do or not do.

In the happiest cases, it is a combination of "what does this person in formation need, in front of me?" and "I know what my baby needs, he/she doesn't know".

In the unfortunate cases (and common, unfortunately, in many cultures), the adult imposes on the child their own needs, weaknesses, unprocessed emotions, traumas, worldviews, being totally or almost totally disconnected from the child. It is like when a person who has no education on that subject, but who forms the students according to his/her own experience, teaches a class.

The cliché "on a plane, put on your oxygen mask first and then to your child" because there is a risk that you will faint and you will not be able to be with your child either - also applies to emotional education. Oxygen can be represented, in this case, by: developing the parent's emotional self-regulation skills, informing yourself about the stages of child development, managing your couple relationship and those with the extended family, finding your own resources and anchors, introspection, identifying and fulfilling your own needs and other aspects particular to each person.

In reality, as adults, we navigate various periods in which we are more connected or more disconnected from ourselves, in which we have various episodes of overwhelm, burnout, anxiety, depression, anger, etc.; we isolate ourselves, then open up again; we forget important aspects about ourselves or about our children and then we remember or relearn them, we go on autopilot and then we return to the present.

Danish author Jesper Juul considers respect to be even more important than love, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Why? Because respect creates the safe framework in which our love can manifest for our children (external or internal). Marta Ge**er, a child development researcher, said, "Many terrible things have been done in the name of love, but nothing terrible can be done in the name of respect."

26/08/2025

Therapy holds the space between no longer and not yet.

Very often we want to change the things that hurt us but we cannot just push a button to make the pain go away, although our bodies and minds are trying to find different "tricks" to keep us away from feeling it. These so called "tricks" can actually save our lives sometimes. In psychotherapy we call them defenses or protectors. We have some mechanisms that, for example, distract us (through scrolling, work, addictions, etc) in order to be able to survive the pain we experience.

When we cannot bare the hurt anymore but we also don't have all the energy we need to make a big change, that's called transition.

Transition is a process of becoming and letting go. It is a place of infinite possibilities. We cannot be who we were in the past anymore, but we're not someone new either. Yet.

We go through different transitions: from the womb to being birthed, from children to adults, from quitting a job to changing our careers, from ending a relationship and discovering the new state of being single, from pregnancy to motherhood, from moving to another country to adapting there, from suffering to healing, from being alone to having a friend, and so on.

Transitions are part of life and they are the bricks that build who we are. Continuously. Sometimes, we resist the difficult transitions that life brings us.

For example, .. we don't want to grieve the pain of losing someone and we pay the price with cronic depression.
.. we don't want to end a relationship but also don't want to change so we are drawn in unhappiness.
.. we don't want to admit and feel what comes with moving abroad, so we become workalhoolics.

In reality, resistance can be an opportunity to enter the magical space of transition. Once we are aware of it, things come to light and we are able to take steps in a certain direction, although transitions sometimes keep us at crossroads for a long time until we are courageous enough to make a decision.

How can we honor the space between no longer and not yet?

By being honest that a change needs to be done.
By acknowledging what we're feeling.
By giving ourselves time.
By asking for support.
By daring to hope and dream.
By taking small actions as often as we can.
By admitting we did mistakes.
By letting go of the burdens that aren"/'t ours,
.. and in many more other ways.

18/08/2025

What is your guiding light - those anchors that root you in yourself, that give you safety and warmth when everything seems to fall apart?

Someone dear to my heart told me that nature never lies, it only says the truth and through nature observation we can develop our perception of ourselves, other people, life in general. This stayed with me and I remember it everytime I am out in the nature. I've been lucky enought to have a forest near my house so I take daily walks alone and with my son. I've been in the forest on sunny days, when it was snowing, raining, windy and even on thunderstorms. Different feelings came up while I was witnessing the forest being taken over by different natural phenomena.

This type of observation is an ongoing process. It's a mirror process with the one in therapy. I witness people in different seasons of their lives and they come with various feelings and moods. I notice my reaction to their feelings, moods, life experiences and I wait, I don't respond right away.

I learned from nature that waiting is important. That space between the stimuli and the response is the one that can be developed in therapy. When we are experiencing trauma, most of us are blended with the reaction to the external or internal stimuli and we are being taken over by feelings, sensations, images, thoughts, and we feel we don't have the autonomy to respond; we are pulled in the storm of reactions that are overwhelming.

I once was in the forest and it was sunny. In just a couple of minutes, weather changed and a forceful wind took over the forest and a thunderstorm came in no time. I wasn't prepared for it so my mind started searching for solutions to find shelter very quickly. I believe this could be an appropriate metaphor for how trauma invades our inner space and bodies. In those moments, the anchors that we've developed when we weren't in danger can be used. Those anchors could be, for example: feeling your emotions without immediately responding from or to them; asking for support; grounding techniques; self-awareness; emotional regulation methods (placing your hand on your chest, breathing into the feeling, naming the emotion, bringing compassion to yourself, etc); setting clear boundaries and maintaing them; etc.

One day an image came up to me while I was gazing the trees. I saw the sun in between the branches. The light was always there although its intensity was fluctuating depending on where I was in the space.

The guiding light inside you is always there even when it's diffuse.

09/08/2025

Babies depend on adults 100%. The first relational experiences are with a caregiver and they mark our attachment to other people throughout our entire lives. We heard this many times and we know it. And even thought we know it, in reality as parents we come with our own relational stories and attachment patterns that cannot be separated from how we parent our children.

Many or some of us don't want to repeat how we've been raised and treated by our caregivers so we force ourselves to be different. But our babies are not us so they might have maybe different needs than ours when we were their age. Our good intention to take care of them "better" can sometimes set us up for disconnection.

One of the most important lessons that we can learn is the relationship with our child's crying and our own as well. Crying is the main communication channel that babies use to express their needs. Baby crying can mean pain, disconfort of any kind, hunger, unmet emotional needs, temperature changes. It is a healthy survival mechanism. The real danger is when a baby doesn't cry at all.

If we, for example, were let to cry alone by our caregivers, we want to avoid this behavior and not let our children to feel abandoned as maybe we felt. So we react immediately to our baby's cry and we soothe them right away. In the short run, it doesn't sound bad - in the end, we are trying to make baby understand that they're cared for and they are not alone, right? But in the long run, we deprive them from experiencing and expressing all their feelings. Of course we need to intervene when they are clearly overwhelmed or when they have a specific disconfort/need, but we also need to learn to wait and observe and this is one of the hardest things to do as a parent and I would say especially as a mother. We are biologically wired to eliminate threats and dangers and to protect our babies.

It is a fragile balance that we pursue in order to gain clarity or insight about when a baby needs to cry in order to express their own feelings or stress and when a baby cries because they need our support.

As adults even if you're not parents: what's your relationship with your tears, with your crying? How do you react when a baby cries nearby? Or when a friend cries? Or when you see someone in a movie crying? Many of us feel disconfort, confusion, helplessness, anger, shame when we're witnessing someone else's crying. Those feelings are directly proportional with some parts of ourselves that might carry these feelings which were never addressed or felt.

But there are also many people who are confortable with crying, they even use it as a mechanism to self-regulate emotionally because tears release cortisol so stress can be expressed and not trapped in our bodies.

I read some time ago about "positive suffering" which I interpret as allowing ourselves to mourn, to cry, to express pain in order to heal or feel better.

When there is space to express, there's no need to suppress. And it is freeing.

06/08/2025

August is International Breastfeeding Month. I would like to contribute to the awareness of this complex process that is not only about feeding, but also about the mother, about fulfillment, but also about pain, worry, distrust, fear, shame.

Breastfeeding is not only about the happiness of being with the baby, but also about sleepless nights, mastitis, many contradictory advices, social pressures, emotional and physical exhaustion, anger, sadness. Breastfeeding can trigger traumatic memories, it is not only about securing the relationship with the baby.

I wish we could have open and honest conversations about breastfeeding and not glorify this process through photos of happy mothers. As in psychotherapy, we need to normalize the diverse experiences of mothers regarding breastfeeding and motherhood.

21/07/2025

What is your radiation?

This was one of the "Feedbacks" that we needed to reflect on as part of the training in dance and movement therapy. It was about how we think/imagine others perceive us.

This theme of reflection returned these days, from another perspective, bringing a different layer of awareness. As a new mother, there is so much information about how and what we should do to be good or perfect parents. There are tons of solicited or unsolicited advice from family, friends, strangers, people online. It is quite challenging to navigate this ocean of ideas and experiences while trying to find balance on your "boat" as a mom.

These opinions can bring up various parts of ourselves and depending on how vulnerable we are during that period, more or less wounded parts are coming up with feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, thoughts.

I noticed some polarized parts that are triggered by different persons as I am navigating motherhood:
- some parts that are critical/judgy and sound like: "You are absurd. You exaggerate. You are too... (sensitive, anxious, worried, afraid, rigid, etc). You shouldn't feel that way."

- and some parts that are normalizing, encouraging, offering compassion and empathy like: "You are going through a huge change, of course you feel that way. I went through a similar experience, I totally get you. You are not alone, me and other friends felt and still feel the same. It's a quite tough experience, give yourself time and understanding, don't rush healing."

IFS (Internal Family Systems) says that how we relate to people externally is also the way we treat ourselves and relate to our parts internally. But it is so hard not to take things personally when you are vulnerable.

One of the exercises I did to bring more clarity and connection is the "IFS parts mandala" which can be used in many different life situations that are challeging. Taking time to reflect, slow down and make contact with ourselves can make space for a deeper self-understanding. Doing this in silence, nature or together with a trusted person, even a psychotherapist can foster progressive healing, piece by piece, step by step.

So returning to my initial thought about personal radiation, I would say that what happens outside can be a trailhead for our inner dynamic, which asks in different ways for care.

Adresse

Strandgade 6
Copenhagen
1401

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Mandag	09:00 - 20:00
Tirsdag	09:00 - 20:00
Onsdag	09:00 - 20:00
Torsdag	09:00 - 20:00
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My story

Dear visitor,

First of all, welcome! My name is Flavia Cardaș and as an open-minded and empathetic psychotherapist, curious and containing, I currently run my private practice in psychotherapy using an Expressive Therapy approach - through therapeutic conversation, movement and arts. With an experience of over 7 years of professional training in experiential humanistic psychotherapy, 5 years of ongoing training in Bothmer Movement and over 200 hours of ongoing personal development and psychotherapy, a PhD in Personal Development through Dance and Movement, I support the self-discovery journeys of my clients in English and Romanian, in a beautiful clinic in Copenhagen (Blå Himmel Yoga) and online. Who are my clients? Individuals that are open (although in pain) to see their own lives from a different perspective, that are willing to make space and time for themselves in their lives, that, although they experience, for example, low self-esteem, poor confidence, unsatisfying relationships, social/cultural integration difficulties, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, they take a courageous step forward in their journey towards themselves, towards the life they want. Which is amazing. Since I started working in Copenhagen and even before moving from Bucharest, most of my clients are expatriates. Therefore I started to be specialized in immigration related topics as cultural identity, adaptation, cultural intelligence, social inclusion, loss, grief - building and maintaining a new life at the same time with preserving identity. My mission is to support adults and children in pursuing their well-being, transforming their difficulties in resources and becoming the creators of their own act of healing and I must admit how grateful I am for people trusting my guidance.

You can discover more about my professional background here:

linkedin.com/in/flavia-cardas-phd-6458196a