Dr. Alia Jasim

Dr. Alia Jasim is an Arabic and English-speaking psychiatrist in Milan. She is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and she receives patients in person in Milan and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in Arabic, English, French and Italian, with adults from 18.

Dr. Jasim has lived, studied and worked in Lebanon, France and Iraq, and knows Arab culture from the inside. For someone who grew up between an Arabic-speaking country and Europe, this changes what therapy feels like: family loyalty, religion, shame, what can be said out loud and what is never named at home do not have to be explained from scratch, or translated into terms a European clinician will find familiar.

Speaking Arabic matters for the same reason. Distress tends to surface in the language a person was a child in, and having to reach for it in a second or third language often means arriving at something thinner than what was actually felt.

She holds advanced training in ethnoclinical and transcultural approaches, and alongside general adult psychiatry she has extensive experience working in migration and transcultural contexts. She pays particular attention to the psychological impact of cultural background, displacement and adaptation to new environments, offering culturally sensitive support to expats, international students and people navigating complex identity transitions.

Being both a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist means the clinical picture and the conversation stay with the same person. She integrates psychiatric assessment, pharmacological treatment and psychotherapy into one individualised path: there is no handover between two professionals who never speak to each other, and no need to tell your story twice.

As an EMDR Level II therapist she specialises in psychological trauma, including complex trauma and migration-related trauma. She works with anxiety and depressive disorders, stress-related conditions, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive difficulties, and a difficult relationship to food including binge eating and bulimia. Her approach is structured, clinically grounded and culturally attuned, and the aim is a space where difficult experiences can be processed and emotional regulation strengthened.

Fewer than 1 in 100 therapists joins the Therapsy team. Dr. Jasim was personally vetted by our Clinical Director, Dr. Francesca A. Boccalari, on three non-negotiable criteria: she shares our values, she speaks at least one language beyond Italian, and she has a physical practice in Milan where you can meet in person, not only online. She is part of a clinical group followed by a Case Manager, with check-ins on new cases and monthly group supervisions.

At Therapsy you do not have to pick your therapist from a list. You start by speaking with Dr. Francesca Boccalari, our Clinical Director, who listens to what you are going through and matches you with the therapist she believes is right for you: Alia Jasim, or one of her colleagues. Then you have a free introductory call with that therapist, and only after that do you decide whether to start. Choosing a therapist while you are struggling, in a language that is not your own, is a lot to ask of a person. That is the part we take on.

Dr. Alia Jasim is registered with the Italian professional register under number 1587, and practises in Milan as part of the Therapsy network of licensed multilingual therapists.