Michael Elwan, AASW

Michael Elwan is an AASW-accredited social worker with 15 years' experience. He works with adults and couples who feel worn down, stuck, or quietly overwhelmed rather than broken by it. Michael aims to make sessions thoughtful, direct, and steady so people can slow down and be heard.

Many clients arrive without an obvious crisis. They carry anxiety, grief, relationship strain, identity questions, burnout, or long years of responsibility. Michael treats the room as a place to notice those burdens and to name the patterns that keep them going. Sessions focus on clarity and emotional steadiness rather than quick fixes.

His approach is calm, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive. He draws on emotionally focused work alongside acceptance and narrative approaches, plus mindfulness and cognitive tools. The focus is on understanding habitual responses and building more grounded ways of relating to self and others.

Michael’s practice is shaped by both professional and lived experience. He has personal history as a young carer and has lived through grief after losing loved ones to suicide. Those experiences guide how he sits with people and how he listens for what is often left unspoken.

He holds membership with the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and with the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy (AA-CBT), and is completing a PhD in mental health. Outside work he is a husband and father, which keeps his perspective practical and rooted in everyday life.

How his approaches translate to online therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on noticing thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choosing actions that fit your values. It can help with anxiety, avoidance, low motivation and coping with life changes. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people change how they connect and trust others. This approach is useful for relationship strain, abandonment feelings, and attachment difficulties. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) works with thoughts and behaviours to reduce unhelpful cycles. It is practical for anxiety, depression, sleep and eating problems, and unhelpful thinking patterns.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will discuss your concerns, goals and preferences and decide together which methods to use. That collaborative process means techniques can change as needs become clearer, and sessions can blend approaches when that makes sense.

The biography does not list specific online formats, so confirm current options before booking. In general, online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives, avoid travel time and have shorter check-ins when needed. They can also support people who prefer to meet from familiar surroundings, reduce time away from work or family, and make scheduling across different routines simpler. Ask about available session types when you start the matching process.