Arabic Speaking Counsellor and Therapist, Online Across Australia

LEXs offers online counselling and therapy in Arabic for adults across Australia, delivered by secure video from a Perth-based practice. Sessions run in Arabic, English, or both, 60 minutes, with no GP referral and no Medicare record. Michael Elwan, an Accredited Social Worker whose work centres on multicultural mental health, works with grief, trauma, migration, and family and relationship strain.

Some things do not translate. Grief has a first language. So do shame, duty, faith, family, and the words your mother used when something was wrong. If you have ever sat with an English-speaking therapist and felt the truest version of what you meant dissolve on the way out, you already know why this page exists.

I am an Arabic speaking counsellor and therapist providing online sessions across Australia. Sessions run in Arabic, in English, or in the mix of both that most bilingual people actually think in. You do not have to pick a language at the door, and you do not have to translate yourself to be understood.

What changes with an Arabic speaking counsellor

Working in your own language is not a convenience; it changes what the work can reach.

You can say the thing the way it actually sounds in your head, including the words that have no clean English equivalent.
Family is understood as it operates in our communities: obligation, honour, hierarchy, loyalty, interference, love, all at once. You will not spend half of each session explaining why you cannot simply "set a boundary" with your father.
Faith and culture are treated as context, not pathology. Whether your relationship with religion is devout, complicated, or quietly lapsed, it belongs in the picture on your terms.
Migration sits underneath much of this work: who was left behind, what the move cost, the grief of losses that happened in another country, and the pressure of being the one the family's sacrifices were for.

Privacy in a small community

For many Arabic-speaking Australians, the biggest barrier to therapy is not stigma in the abstract; it is the very practical fear that the therapist, or someone in their waiting room, knows your family.

Two things about how I practise answer that directly. I am based in Perth and work entirely online, so for most clients I am outside your city and outside your community's network. And sessions require no GP referral and create no Medicare record; nothing about your care enters that system. What you bring stays between us, within the ordinary professional limits of safety that I will explain plainly in our first session.

What I work with

Most of my Arabic-speaking clients bring one or more of these: grief and loss, including losses that happened overseas; trauma, including intercultural and migration-related trauma; relationship and family strain, including intergenerational and interfaith pressures; men's mental health; and the quiet exhaustion of holding a family together across two cultures. Couples work is also available, in either language, on the couples therapy page.

Fees and practicalities

Sessions are 60 minutes by secure video, $200, paid at booking, anywhere in Australia. Longer 90-minute sessions are $260.

Who you would be working with

I am Michael Elwan, founder of LEXs, an Accredited Social Worker and PhD candidate at Charles Sturt University. My practice and advisory work centre on multicultural mental health, and in 2026 I received the WA Multicultural Awards Outstanding Individual Achievement Award. I work from Perth with clients across Australia. More on the about page.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find an Arabic speaking counsellor in Australia?

There are very few of us, and most work in community organisations with waiting lists and eligibility rules. Working online widens the field: you can see an Arabic speaking counsellor from any city or town in Australia, without waiting for one to exist in your suburb. You can book directly here; no referral is needed.

Can we switch between Arabic and English?

Yes, and most sessions do. Bilingual people rarely live in one language; therapy should not ask you to.

Will anything go on my Medicare record?

No. There is no referral, no mental health treatment plan, and no Medicare claim, because no rebate applies. Some private health funds rebate social work services under extras cover.