Loneliness is a recurring theme in online groups for foreigners in Spain, a mental health issue which is almost taboo in a country known for being sociable. The Local spoke to a Spain-based therapist to find out why.
With World Health Organisation’s Mental Health Day is coming up on October 10th, we thought we’d delve into some of the reasons behind why loneliness is a growing problem and the main reasons how it affect foreigners in Spain.
Feeling lonely is more common that people think, trying to make new friends in a new country, feeling down because you haven’t yet met ‘your people’ or having to make new friends over and over again because of the transient nature of big cities here.
It’s hard to admit to people back home when you’ve taken the leap to move to a new country. They expect that your life is exciting and full of great experiences, not lonely, desperately going to new meetups every week to try and find someone to connect with.
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In 2025, a World Health Organisation report revealed that 1 in 6 people globally are lonely, so it’s not just a phenomenon happening in Spain, but if you’re a foreigner in a new country it can be amplified even more. What’s more you may not have the support network of family to fall back on because they’re living far away.
Professional psychologist Gabriela Encina specialises in working with foreigners who live abroad. She writes on her website that “Moving abroad is an exhilarating adventure filled with new experiences and opportunities, however, amidst the excitement, there is often an underlying loneliness, the need for connection and a sense of belonging”. She cites differences in culture, as well as language barriers, which are common reasons making new friends is more difficult.
Most websites and blog posts about moving to Spain list easy ways of making friends such as going to language exchanges, joining groups and finding new hobbies and while these can be great, she also acknowledges a common problem.
“It’s really complicated to get out there…. When you don’t get what you want in terms of meeting people, you think it’s your fault, and the feeling of isolation is worse”.
It can be difficult to push yourself to get out there and act happy and normal when inside you’re just feeling down and lonely.
To find out all about the problem of loneliness among foreigners in Spain specifically, we interviewed Leigh Matthews, founder of Therapy in Barcelona a, group practice of English-speaking, psychology-trained therapists supporting internationals across Spain, in person in Barcelona and online, since 2011.
READ ALSO: How to find an English-speaking therapist in Spain
Their website states that isolation is one of the most common reasons internationals reach out them.
“Loneliness is much more common than people tend to admit,” Matthews tells us. “It still carries a lot of shame, so most people keep quiet about it, even with friends back home. In our work it’s one of the consistent threads, showing up in different ways and to different degrees, but almost always there.
“Spain’s image makes it harder to talk about. Friends at home see the beach photos and the long lunches, so admitting you went a whole weekend without a proper conversation can feel ungrateful. Because life abroad is widely seen as enriching or even privileged, grief and loneliness often go unnoticed, and many people end up feeling their distress isn’t taken seriously,” she continues.
This is evident from data too. Spain has topped InterNations’ expat Quality of Life Index for five years running, yet Spain’s 2024 national loneliness barometer found unwanted loneliness is almost double among people born abroad or with a foreign-born parent, compared with people born in Spain to Spanish-born parents (32.5 percent versus 17.8 percent).
The Spanish government now recognises this formally and its first national strategy on loneliness was approved in February 2026, which includes migration among the life transitions it sets out to address.
At the heart of it the key issue is belonging. Many internationals describe a sense of living a life they’re not quite part of, going through the motions in a place that hasn’t yet become theirs. That feeling of standing slightly outside your own life, trapped behind language barriers, is much more painful than the practical challenges of moving,” explains Matthews.
She adds that when you move to another country, you lose your language, your routines and the people who knew you before you arrived, and you lose them all at once. “None of that gets replaced or rebuilt easily or quickly.”
There are several different other reasons for loneliness here, which doesn’t necessarily only affect those who are new here.
“It appears in people who arrived last month as often as in people who’ve lived here for years,” Matthews says.
Part of the issue is how Spanish social life works. Most locals here still have a groups of friends they made at school or university and their inner circle has often been settled for twenty years or more so they don’t necessarily feel the need to bring more people in, let alone foreigners.
Another reason is that many friendships that internationals make here grow out of a particular setting, such as a master’s programme, an office, or coworking space for example, and while those relationships are often warm and friendly, they stay exactly there, and don’t move beyond that to become deeper.
Language of course also plays a huge role and it can make everyday tasks become exhausting, let alone being able to socialise and make jokes in Spanish too, but Matthews admits that it’s not everything.
Even if you speak the language “Being a foreigner changes how you’re seen, and how you see yourself. You’re invited, welcomed and liked, and still introduced as ‘the English one’ or ‘our American friend’. That label rarely comes from unkindness, but over time it can make belonging feel conditional. Accent and appearance play a part too, and internationals who experience racism carry an extra weight on top of the usual challenges of settling in,” she explains.
Then there’s the fact that foreigners often tone themselves down to fit in, so that they’re not always showing their true personality.
Others may hold back because when they arrived, they had only planned to stay a couple of years and so didn’t bother forging deep friendships.
This can work the other way around too. In cities and coastal towns with large international populations, friendships between internationals turn over fast. Contracts end, visas run out, and people move home or on to the next country. “When you’ve already said goodbye to five good friends, holding back with the sixth makes complete sense as self-protection, but it also keeps you lonely,” Matthews says.
Social media also plays a part these days, comparing your life to others, seeing everyone else appearing to have fun and make friends when you’re not, the tendency to scroll and check up on people’s lives back in your home country.
“In the end, solid friendships need more than meeting people. They need the confidence to take the first step, the skills to keep a relationship going, and enough sense of safety to be yourself,” Matthews concludes.
She explains that therapy can help with loneliness specifically and that your therapist can support you to set small, realistic goals around connections that fit what matters to you, and to follow through on them when anxiety is telling you to stay home.