The work
The work I do is relational and focused on pattern. I don't run intake checklists. I don't assign homework. I pay attention to what happens in the session. The moments when something shifts or goes flat. The pattern that keeps showing up underneath the problem. Most people already know their own story. They still keep landing in the same place. What's missing is someone watching in real time, someone who can name what you cannot see from inside it. More on how I work, and how I work with couples.
What people bring to online therapy
The people I work with in English come for a wide range of reasons: anxiety, depression, stress and burnout, anger management, grief and loss, relationship difficulties, loneliness, self-esteem issues, procrastination, sleep problems, attachment patterns, self-sabotage, perfectionism, identity questions, and existential concerns. Online counseling makes this work possible from wherever you are, whether you need an English-speaking therapist, a virtual counselor, or simply someone who can work in your language at a depth that matters.
How it works
Sessions are online via secure video call. I work with individuals and couples (60 minutes). Before your first session, we have a free 15-minute call to see if this feels like the right fit for you.
English-speaking therapy in Malaysia sits mostly in Kuala Lumpur. The quality varies. Sustained depth work in English takes real searching. Outside KL the options thin out fast.
I work with anyone who needs support in English and is living in Malaysia. Relationship trouble. A low you can't quite name. A life in transition. Something long-standing.
Being in Malaysia
Malaysia has a big expat professional scene. Kuala Lumpur most of all. The social world can be warm, but it often stays at the level of the expat circuit. Belonging to actual Malaysian life is harder to reach. It takes longer.
If the specific quality of life here is part of what you're dealing with, we can work with it. If what brings you has nothing to do with Malaysia, that's fine.
KL, Penang, and everywhere else
The Klang Valley holds most of the expat population, and nearly all the in-person therapy options. Mont Kiara and Bangsar for the corporate crowd. Cyberjaya for tech. Penang has a sizable expat scene. The clinical bench there is thinner. Johor Bahru orbits Singapore. East Malaysia, Langkawi, and the MM2H retirement towns have almost no English-language depth therapy at all. That is where online stops being a convenience and becomes the whole answer.
Country details last reviewed June 2026.
Dedicated city page: Kuala Lumpur.
Not sure yet? That's what the free call is for.
Request a free 15-min callHow therapy works in Malaysia: the rules and the prices
Malaysia regulates the talking professions unevenly, and it helps to know the map. Counsellors are genuinely licensed: the Board of Counsellors (Lembaga Kaunselor) registers them under the Counsellors Act, with required master's degrees and practicing certificates. The title "Clinical Psychologist" is protected under the Allied Health Professions Act 2016, though title protection is not the same as practice licensing, and plain "psychologist" or "therapist" carries no statutory weight at all. The deeper constraint is supply: Malaysia has only a few hundred clinical psychologists for a population of over thirty million, most of them in the Klang Valley.
Public mental healthcare runs through Ministry of Health hospitals and the Mentari community clinics, which are inexpensive and increasingly decent, but psychiatry-led and queued. Private practice is where most therapy actually happens. Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya have a genuine clinic ecosystem, sessions typically RM160 to RM450 depending on seniority, and English is the default working language of the urban professional class, so language is rarely the barrier it is elsewhere in Asia. Insurance is the catch: Malaysian policies have historically covered serious psychiatric diagnoses at best, and routine psychotherapy almost never, so nearly everyone pays out of pocket.
My position in that picture
I am not registered with the Lembaga Kaunselor and do not practice within Malaysia's framework. I am a US-trained therapist who works online, privately, by direct arrangement. For the KL professional crowd the practical difference is straightforward: no commute through Federal Highway traffic and no chance of running into your colleague in a waiting room.
Questions people ask from Malaysia
How does public mental health care work in Malaysia?
What does private therapy cost in KL?
Is counseling licensed in Malaysia?
Do you see clients in Penang or East Malaysia?
Selected research on this approach
My work is psychodynamic and depth-oriented. These are some of the studies on the effectiveness of that kind of therapy. They describe research on the method in general, and are not claims about any individual outcome.
- Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109. doi:10.1037/a0018378
- Steinert, C., Munder, T., Rabung, S., Hoyer, J., & Leichsenring, F. (2017). Psychodynamic therapy: as efficacious as other empirically supported treatments? A meta-analysis testing equivalence of outcomes. American Journal of Psychiatry, 174(10), 943-953. PMID 28541091
The full reading list is on the approach page.
Fifteen minutes is enough to know if this fits.
Request a free 15-min call