Semjon Leonidovich Uglev

Does this sound familiar?

Many people come to me with experiences that are hard to put into words. If at least some of this resonates — you have come to the right place.

• "I live in a new country but feel like a ghost". Everything is, in principle, in place: a job, a home, daily routine. But there is no foothold — as if you were watching your own life from the outside.
• Longing not for a place, but for your former self. Going back is impossible or out of the question; staying is unbearable. You are not only mourning a country, but also the version of yourself that stayed behind there.
• Anxiety that will not let go. Papers, status, money, fear of making a mistake — and the feeling that your whole life rests on assumptions that a single stamp or a single phone call could strip away.
• Relationships that did not survive the move. A couple split apart at the border. The children are growing up "not ours". Old friends have drifted away, and new ones have not yet become your own.
• "A postponed life". The years go into survival and adaptation, while career, creativity, love and meaning are on pause.
• Invisible grief. Loved ones you cannot visit. Farewells that never took place. Funerals you could not attend. A country and a language that now exist somewhere inside your phone.
• "Who am I now, really?" The question that haunts you at night and that neither a passport nor a résumé can answer.

All of this is a normal experience for a person whose life has changed more than that of most people around them. This can — and should — be worked with.

What I work with

The concerns of people living far from home are often specific. But behind them stand ordinary human themes — only in an unusual and often painful context.

Faith and meaning

For many people far from home, faith becomes one of the few remaining supports. For others, it is the move itself that forces them to look anew at faith, the church, guilt, meaning and their own path.

I treat these themes with care. In therapeutic work I do not try to convince anyone of what to believe, and I do not turn conversations about pain into a sermon. But if faith, doubt, prayer, guilt or the search for meaning are part of your life, we can talk about it openly — without having to explain everything from scratch.

Theological background

• Theological and spiritual education, academic publications in theology.
• Many years of experience in church ministry and pastoral counselling.
• Familiarity with the spiritual tradition, the practice of prayer, questions of guilt, forgiveness, loss and the search for meaning.

How this is handled in therapy

• Therapy remains therapy. I respect your beliefs, your path and your right not to talk about faith if this theme is not essential for you.
• Spiritual themes — only at your request. I do not start conversations about God myself and do not use sessions for religious instruction.
• If faith matters to you, there is room for it. We can speak about it in a language close to you — without simplifications and without attempts to "correct" your experiences.
• The boundaries work both ways. I do not turn therapy into a sermon, or a sermon into therapy. These are different forms of conversation, and mixing them helps neither.

Qualifications and memberships

Education

• Child psychologist — East European Institute of Psychoanalysis, 2017–2018; Master of Psychology with honours — East European Institute of Psychoanalysis; Moscow Psychological-Social University, 2023. Programmes: psychoanalysis and counselling psychology.
• Clinical psychology, clinical psychologist — 2022–2023.
• Existential-humanistic psychology — 2023–2024.
• "Psychotherapy of Being: Theory, Practice, Culture". Training stages I and II — Institute of Philosophy and Psychology "The Human Being and the World", 2024–2025.
• "Ontological Psychoanalysis: from knowing to being and becoming" — Jack Foehl, Ph.D., International Academy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, 2026.
• Professional in-depth supervision, multimodal approach — 136 hours, 2021–2022.

Professional memberships

• Member of the Eurasian Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ЕКПП/EKPP) since 2021.
• Full member of the All-Russian Professional Psychotherapeutic League (ОППЛ/OPPL).
• Accredited supervisor of the OPPL.
• Specialist of the Russian Psychotherapeutic Association (РПА/RPA), author of certified RPA training programmes.
• Mediátor: specialist in mediation and alternative conflict resolution.

Selected publications

Full list of publications: ORCID 0009-0002-8695-6304 . Some of the works are indexed in VAK, RINC and eLIBRARY. RINC: 1333017 · SPIN: 3482-3012.