Dr. Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD therapist

Dr. Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD therapist Dr Marcel de Roos is a Psychologist PhD from the Netherlands with a private practice in Colombo Sri Lanka. Many of my clients are expats and foreigners. etc.)

Hi, I am dr. Marcel de Roos (Psychologist PhD, the Netherlands with more than 30 years of experience) and I have a general psychology practice in a residential area in Nugegoda (see my website www.marcelderoos.com for an elaborate route description). My practice is located in my house in comfortable, confidential surroundings and not in public impersonal hospitals. Living in Sri Lanka now for sixteen years, being Dutch myself and married to my Sri Lankan wife Manjula I can relate to the issues that expats encounter. I work with adults (expat issues, marriage counselling, depression, anxiety, s*xual problems, addictions, LGBTQ-related issues, trauma therapy, stress, personal development, giving meaning to your life, how to build self-esteem, choosing a profession and career advice, social issues, etc. and with children (teenager counselling, study related problems, personal and social issues, etc.). Furthermore I give (onsite) individual coaching for CEO's, higher management, entrepreneurs and executives (confidential personal issues, leadership issues, career development, work stress, etc.). Please visit my website www.marcelderoos.com for more information about myself and how I work. I am affiliate psychologist with:

- the United States Embassy in Colombo for visiting American citizens, for Embassy staff members and I conduct psychological assessments of US citizens on behalf of the U.S. Social Security Administration.

- UNHCR Sri Lanka, for refugees until their resettlement abroad.

- Workplace Options (www.workplaceoptions.com) for their Sri Lankan clients. For them I provide Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services for employees and family members. Confidentiality is most important to me. What is said in therapy is very private and it stays private. One of the methods I use is to work with feelings, behaviour and thoughts; in the present and in the past. The end result is a more balanced personality. Other methods I use are for example:

- elements of short-term psychodynamic therapy

- elements of cognitive behaviour therapy

- elements of emotionally focused couple therapy


Although I am not a big proponent of administering drugs for mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, in some cases it can be useful. Depression has everything to do with FEELING depressed. Since depression is about stuck emotions, it makes sense to treat it from that angle. Psychiatrists and other medical doctors are generally speaking not trained in conducting and understanding research. Psychologists on the other hand, have to undergo a stringent and extensive schooling regarding research (on my website www.marcelderoos.com you can read articles about typical differences between psychologists and psychiatrists). Not only plain “statistics” like multiple regression analysis but more about the art of how to set up proper research studies and how to “read” them. Research is difficult; you need to have an extremely critical mindset. There exists no "chemical imbalance in the brain" and this and the "serotonin reuptake" story (people are encouraged to believe that depression is caused by a deficiency of serotonin as in the analogy with diabetes and insulin) are just clever marketing concoctions of the pharmaceutical industry, there is no scientific medical proof. We know for some twenty years that antidepressants do not outperform placebo (see for example www.joannamoncrieff.com and Kirsch, 1998). On top of that antidepressants have a whole list of (possible) side-effects, of which weight gain and s*xual dysfunctions (not a pleasant thing when you're already depressed) are the most common ones; for both genders for example reduced libido and delayed or blocked or**sm and for men difficulty in having an er****on. For more information please read in the articles on my website www.marcelderoos.com. With extreme rare illnesses like bipolar depression (if correctly diagnosed!) and schizophrenia medication is paramount. As I always tell my clients, whenever they want to stop with medication it's very important to do this under medical supervision. The consultations can take place face to face, by phone or online (WhatsApp, Zoom, FaceTime, etc.). If you wish to change a scheduled appointment, it’s important that you provide at least 24 hours advance notice, in order to avoid being charged for the session. Appointments cancelled within this 24-hour window will be charged at the full rate. My practice is open from Tuesday till Saturday from 8 AM till 7 PM. Sundays and Mondays are my days off. Appointments can be made by mail, text message or by phone. During the sessions I don't answer phone calls but I always call back in the 10 minutes breaks in between the sessions. Phone: 077-2310869
Email: marcel.deroos@yahoo.com
Website: www.marcelderoos.com

SHAME.By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, The Netherlandswww.marcelderoos.comIn the Lucky Luke (“the man who shoots ...
03/11/2025

SHAME.
By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, The Netherlands
www.marcelderoos.com

In the Lucky Luke (“the man who shoots faster than his shadow”) comic book “A cure for the Daltons”, the hilarious Austrian psychologist, Professor Dr. Otto von Himbeergeist goes to the United States’ Wild West, and tries to cure the notorious Dalton gang brothers from their criminal activities. He uses psychoanalysis where by means of asking a shame-evoking question about their childhood, the persons tell him their entire life story and they subsequently burst out in tears.

In the psychoanalytic literature, shame is often mentioned in the same breath as guilt. This, because both emotions are linked with the experience of emotional suffering and both can lead to enormous inhibitions. Guilt is what you actually have done (behaviour), while shame has to do with how you judge yourself as a person. When you feel guilty, you can try to correct aspects of what you have done, but with shame it’s almost impossible. Therefore shame is far more damaging than guilt.

In everyday life, there is often an overlap between shame and guilt. Many people get confused because they perceive that feeling about something, thinking and fantasising are the same as acting upon it. When you invent a perfect plan to rob a bank, you are of course not guilty. When you fantasise about having s*x with that person you saw in a shop you don’t have to feel shameful. When somebody feels guilty without shame, it signifies positive self-worth: “I can learn from my mistake and become a better person”. But feeling ashamed without guilt (you haven’t done anything) about having s*xual fantasies can be experienced as extremely self-deprecating: “I don’t have self-control regarding my low lusts”. When shame is dominant then the therapist focuses on the vulnerable and low self-image, and where it stems from in the client’s childhood.

Shame coexists with anger and hostility towards ourselves. As a result, shame tends to be disastrous: people show more non-constructive behaviour related to the management of their anger. Their sense of self-worth is extremely low and there is a strong relationship with depression. Shame is not a result of the actual gaze of another person to ourselves, but through our own gaze how we look at ourselves through the eyes of the other person. The eyes of the other person are nothing but the internalised images of the erstwhile gazes of our parents.

Abused women can experience shame because they realise that they can be beaten and scolded without consequences for the perpetrator. Some abused women stay with their partner, while some leave after the first slap. When you feel ashamed for being beaten up and the subsequent anger that is caused by shame, is being directed towards yourself in the form of self-devaluation, then you will experience the abuse as “justified”. Therefore it’s imperative that there is a safe and trustworthy therapeutic relationship with the therapist. The client should be able to feel safe enough to tell the real story (plus the root causes), without the risk of feeling humiliated again.

Psychodynamic therapy can uncover the unconscious shame that is manifested by overt inhibitions. Childhood memories can emerge about the poignant feelings related to traumatic experiences. Therapy can reduce the paralysing weight of shame and can result in a liberating effect, and the clients will be able to think and feel without the excruciating and debilitating shame.

Marcel de Roos psychologist with practice in Colombo Sri Lanka (corporate) coaching online counselling.

PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE GOLDEN ROAD.By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, the Netherlandswww.marcelderoos.com...
12/10/2025

PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE GOLDEN ROAD.
By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, the Netherlands
www.marcelderoos.com

Our existence as human beings is about trying to live with a constant stream of feelings, numerous thoughts and physical sensations. On top of that, we are able to reflect on our past, present and future. But our past can be an interference that impedes a functional life, and some people are even not aware that they are hindered by unsolved aspects of their past.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy explores such obstacles and tries to assist people to regain their freedom and their meaningfulness. It gives few answers but asks a lot of questions. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is not an American-like gospel, centred on the cult of positive thinking, nor a superficial and here-and-now cognitive behaviour therapy variant. It’s a way of thinking and questioning where positive thinking fails, why are my intentions and resolutions unsuccessful, why am I making promises that invariably nose-dive and result in depressed feelings and self-blame?

Psychodynamic psychotherapy has a rich history, starting of course with Sigmund Freud, but there are many others (like the esoteric Carl Jung, the social ethical Alfred Adler, the philosophical Jacques Lacan, etc.) who started in the Freudian parent church, but later developed their own theories. Nowadays, there are multiple major psychodynamic approaches, plus there is an amalgamation with knowledge from other sciences like memory research, neurobiological explanations and biological attachment theories.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is not about giving “logical advice”, or about “changing your irrational thoughts”. A stressed, tense and perfectionistic person already knows the advice that a friend or relative would give: stop stressing, relax more, stop having high demands for yourself, and allow yourself to make mistakes. A psychodynamic therapist isn’t looking for solutions, but poses a lot of questions, and realises that rational answers don’t explain the root causes of behaviour. It’s much more important which emotions (often from our past!) play a role because these influence behaviour.

Previous experiences in our past generate an emotional basis for present cognitive beliefs. During childhood and puberty, the relationships with father, mother, siblings, and other important contributors have a significant impact on how we develop our personalities. The psychodynamic therapist looks for the individual significance that someone gives to his behaviour or emotions, by repeatedly questioning what the client tells and give another interpretation of something apparently self-evident for the client.

Guilt and shame are very strong emotions, which very often play an important role in our present behaviour. Shame is about who you ARE, guilt is about what you DO. Shame has to do with your identity, with who you are. Guilt has to do with what you think, feel or do. A strong tendency to feel guilty feeds your inner critic by keeping yourself responsible. Guilt is less damaging than shame, with guilt you feel bad about what you have done, but not about yourself. A strong tendency to feel ashamed feeds your inner critic with self-devaluation. When you always attribute an incident to your personal weaknesses or shortcoming then it can become a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a well-known fact that a high level of shame and depression are related.

By taking ownership of your strong negative feelings about yourself, you can slowly go deeper and realise WHY these feelings are there and what really causes them to manifest themselves. The deeper cause of shame often lies in the childhood family situation where experiences of one or both parents being condescending, scornful, abusive or negative towards you. It’s important to make the emotional link between present emotions and where they are rooted. Allowing yourself to feel these emotions is the first step to recovery.

Marcel de Roos psychologist with practice in Colombo Sri Lanka (corporate) coaching online counselling.

WHY DO I KEEP CHOOSING TOXIC PARTNERS?By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, the Netherlandswww.marcelderoos.comWhat do...
01/09/2025

WHY DO I KEEP CHOOSING TOXIC PARTNERS?
By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, the Netherlands
www.marcelderoos.com

What do we do when we often find ourselves in a relationship with someone who seems to have abusive tendencies? We can try to understand this person, what’s wrong with him or her. Does this person comes from an abusive family, has an unhealthy attachment style, unresolved childhood traumas, is it a narcissist or suffering from other mental issues?

A better way is to ask yourself why you repeatedly tolerate people who are emotionally not available, who push you away, or who actively abuse you. Perhaps you are reaffirming something that feels similar, familiar. It could very well be that growing up your parents have mistreated you, like a very controlling and abusive mother, or a distant father. The relationship with your partner might not be great, but since it feels familiar, your subconscious will often prefer it.

There exist this fairy tale that you first have to love yourself before you should start a relationship. But romantic relationships are par eminence a place where we can grow, by confronting repetitive hurtful triggers and learning to cope with them in a different way. We humans are relational beings, we need others to make us feel safe.

Relationships mirror us to find out where we need more healing. Because romantic relationships are so close and intense, they resemble the family relationships we grew up with, including all the problems and traumatic experiences. In our present romantic relationships we have to deal with being vulnerable, getting hurt, fights, compromises, boundaries. They can trigger us to experience unhealthy patterns and root causes in our past family life. This is painful but it also gives us an opportunity to reflect, grow and change our current behaviour.

As a side note, no parent is perfect and babies and children need to get used to living in an imperfect world. The British paediatrician and psychotherapist Donald Winnicot phrased the concept of “good enough parenting”. A person develops a “true self” when it has learnt to feel seen, and as good enough. On the contrary, a “false self” signifies only surface confidence and adjustment to the outside world, but it lacks passion and meaningfulness.

And regarding choices we make, the writer Milan Kundera explains vividly in his book “Testaments betrayed”, that we all walk in a fog. But when we look back to judge people’s past then you don’t see that fog, only a clear path. So it’s important to practice kindness, empathy and understanding towards others and towards ourselves.

We can easily hide our struggles for others, and even for ourselves, but not in close relationships. We can find healing and inner peace through relationships, as long as we are aware about our patterns in behaviour and emotions, and we think of how we can change these. We can learn to notice certain triggers, where they are related to, and we can choose to react in a different way. It usually has to do with deeper emotions (and to a lesser extent with a rational insight) which connect with older patterns and experiences from our family relationships in our childhood and teenage years.

Marcel de Roos psychologist with practice in Colombo Sri Lanka (corporate) coaching online counselling.

EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS: MEANINGFULNESS, LIFE AND DEATH.By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, The Netherlandswww.marceld...
13/08/2025

EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS: MEANINGFULNESS, LIFE AND DEATH.
By Dr Marcel de Roos, Psychologist PhD, The Netherlands
www.marcelderoos.com

Many of my clients, after having spoken about their more imminent issues, often mention existential concerns like choices in their life, how to live and the impermanence of life.

One of my favourite authors is the American existential psychotherapist / psychiatrist Irvin Yalom. In his book “Love’s executioner and other tales of psychotherapy” (and more in detail in his book “Existential psychotherapy”) he writes about his existential perspective. Yalom asserts that in order to discover the fundamental truths of our existence one should make time to reflect. That means personal reflection in silence, solitude and exclusion of distractions (no phone, music, TV, people). By doing so, we can get deeper and experience personal emotions and thoughts. This is not the same as meditating where the aim is often “to quiet the monkey mind”, whereas self-reflection is about confronting your thoughts and especially your emotions.

Yalom differentiates four ultimate concerns which individuals are confronted with in their existential dynamic conflict: death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. By confronting these existential truths they can be vessels for personal change and growth.

- Death is the only guarantee we have in life. When we are young we usually hardly think of it because we are so involved with creating and managing our lives, and death seems far away. When we get older, we typically seek solace with rationalising death or we follow a spiritual or religious path. We know about death intellectually, but we tend to dissociate from the terror that comes with the notion of death. But being fully aware of death and accepting it enhances our wisdom and it gives depth to our lives…
- Although we often think of freedom as an unequivocally positive concept, freedom signifies that one is responsible for one’s own choices, life design and actions. It also means that we as humans become very anxious with the absence of any existing structure, and we have to deal with nothingness, which feels like a void, an abyss. The answer lies in taking ownership and make a decision to act.
- Existential isolation is fundamental in the sense of an unbridgeable gap between ourselves and others (even if you’re in a deeply gratifying relationship). Each of us enters life alone and we must depart from it alone. Our wish for contact, protection, our wish to be part of something larger, tries to cover up our awareness of our fundamental isolation. Although there is no solution for existential isolation, we must find our own way to make peace with it.
- Many people seek therapy because they feel empty and search for meaningfulness. Life in itself has no meaning, you’re born and you die, but we can give meaning to our individual lives. Why do we live, how to live, there is no readymade map for us, so we have to construct our own meaning in life. Meaningfulness is a by-product of engagement and commitment, and it can’t be found rationally. Meaning should be searched implicitly, it results from activities where one feels involved with. The outcome often surprises us because there is no rational explanation for it.

As a psychologist it’s a prerequisite to be able to tolerate uncertainty. Clients’ experiences are unique and there are no standard answers. Therapists should refrain from embracing rigid ideological schools and therapeutic systems. Effective therapy lies often in the unexpected and spontaneous conversations.

Marcel de Roos psychologist with practice in Colombo Sri Lanka (corporate) coaching online counselling.

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29 Chapel Road
Pita Kotte
10250

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Tuesday 08:00 - 18:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 18:00
Thursday 08:00 - 18:00
Friday 08:00 - 18:00
Saturday 08:00 - 18:00

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Hi, I am Dr Marcel de Roos (Psychologist PhD, the Netherlands with more than 25 years of experience) and I have a general psychology practice in a residential area in Ethul Kotte. It’s located in my house in comfortable, confidential surroundings and not in public impersonal hospitals.

It’s a big colonial style house with ample parking space close to the main road (Kotte Road), right above Beddagana Wetland Park and next to the Kotte Archaeological Museum. It’s easily accessible from Colombo Centre, Rajagirya, Battaramulla, Nugegoda, Colombo 7 and Colombo 5.

Many of my clients are expats and foreigners. Living in Sri Lanka now for seven years, being Dutch myself and married to my Sri Lankan wife Manjula I can relate to the issues that expats encounter. I work with adults (expat issues, marriage counselling, depression, anxiety, s*xual problems, addictions, trauma therapy, stress, personal development, giving meaning to your life, how to build self-esteem, choosing a profession and career advice, social issues, etc. etc.) and with children (teenager counselling, study related problems, personal and social issues, etc.). Please visit my website www.marcelderoos.com for more information about myself, how I work plus an elaborate route description to my house. For the United States Embassy in Colombo I conduct psychological assessments of US citizens on behalf of the U.S. Social Security Administration.

For the the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office in Colombo I work as a psychologist for their consular staff members.