Alex Murray
Alex Murray is a psychologist who graduated from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
She holds postgraduate training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for anxiety and depression, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for emotional dysregulation, and a specialization in immigrant mental health from the University of Barcelona.
She is a registered member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC).
Companies founded
Alex is the founder and director of two mental health companies in New Zealand:
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Therapy for Migrants
Therapy for Migrants offers specialized counselling for immigrants navigating the emotional challenges of the resettlement process.
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PerkUp Self-Therapy
PerkUp provides physical mental health toolkits designed to support individuals while they wait for professional care.
Collaborations
She has collaborated with SafetyWing, a YC18 Silicon Valley startup, helping to develop a mental health platform for digital nomads, and has contributed content to the award-winning New Zealand-based startup Griefity, where she also serves on the advisory board and provides clinical input.
Alex has delivered professional training in migratory grief and acculturative stress to educators across the U.S. through the Council of the Great City Schools, and authored a chapter in their upcoming publication, Considerations for Identifying and Supporting Newcomer Students (2025).
In New Zealand, she received funding from the Ministry for Ethnic Communities to provide resettlement counselling to Latin American immigrants.
Publications
In her academic work, Alex has expanded on the theory of migratory grief originally proposed by psychiatrist Joseba Achotegui, identifying two additional types of grief beyond the original seven, a topic she explores in her first book, “Migratory Grief”, co-authored with her colleagues Melina Ossana and Sabrina Montiel.
She has also contributed significantly to the concept of language grief, developing the framework of micro-duels, coining the “Little Mermaid Syndrome,” and creating a psychometric scale to measure the impact of language barriers on immigrants’ lives, a tool currently undergoing scientific validation through the Auckland University of Technology (AUT). She explores this topic in greater depth in her second book, “Language Grief and 21 Techniques to Overcome the Language Barrier”.
She currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand
with her husband and daughter.
Outside of work, Alex is a proud mama
who loves spending quality time
with her family ❤️