Grief Counselling Online, Across Australia

I am Michael Elwan, an Accredited Social Worker, and grief is the centre of my therapy practice rather than an item on a list. I work with people grieving the death of a parent, a partner, a sibling, a child. I work with people bereaved by suicide. I work with carers grieving someone who is still alive, and with people carrying the quieter losses of health, identity, country, and direction that rarely get named as grief at all.

What grief counselling involves

Grief counselling at LEXs is unhurried. I do not work through stages, because grief does not move in stages; it moves in waves, and it returns on anniversaries, in supermarkets, in songs. The work is making room for what you are carrying, understanding how it is living in your body and your days, and slowly finding a way to hold the loss and your life at the same time. Some sessions are about the person you lost. Some are about sleep, anger, guilt, or the strange flatness that frightens people more than sadness does. All of it belongs.

Some people search for grief counselling, others for grief therapy. I use both words for the same careful work.

The losses I work with

Suicide bereavement is a particular focus of mine, shaped by my own lived experience and my research and advisory work in suicide prevention. Grief after suicide carries questions other losses do not, and it deserves a counsellor who is not afraid of them. I also bring particular depth to caregiver grief, having cared for both of my parents for many years, and to grief in multicultural families, where mourning, faith, and family expectation are woven together and where Australian services often miss the cultural weight of a loss.

Online grief counselling, anywhere in Australia

Sessions are by video, wherever you are in Australia. I am based in Perth and work nationally. There is no GP referral, no Mental Health Treatment Plan, and no diagnosis on a Medicare record; you book directly and we begin when you are ready. For broader grief support options, the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement maintains services and resources nationally.

What can I expect from grief counselling?

A first session is mostly listening. You tell me about the person, or the loss, in whatever order it comes. There is no requirement to be ready, articulate, or composed.

How long does grief counselling take?

There is no set number of sessions. Some people come for a handful around a difficult milestone; others work with me across a year. We review as we go, and the pace is yours.

Do I need grief counselling, or is this normal grief?

Most grief does not need counselling. It may be worth talking to someone when grief is not softening with time, when it is isolating you, when the loss was sudden or traumatic, or when you are performing recovery for everyone around you while feeling none of it.

Grief work of this kind sits at the centre of the individual therapy I offer online at LEXs.