Ibrahim Al Mubaidin
Amman- While many feel embarrassed about mental health counseling or everything related to “psychotherapy”, the start-up project “Arab Therapy” provides an opportunity to obtain this service in complete secrecy through “online”.
The idea of the emerging project, which bears the name “Arab Therapy” is based on a digital platform that provides Arabs around the world with high-standard mental health services via the Internet that is used today by more than two hundred million Arabic speakers, including more than ten million Jordanians.
The platform’s founder, Tariq Delbah, said: “The platform, which was officially launched a year ago, connects users with qualified, scientifically and practically qualified therapists,” pointing out that all specialists and psychiatrists on the platform hold a master’s degree and above, in addition to high-level expertise in various psychiatric clinics. and hospitals in the European Union and the Arab world.
And Delbah, a Jordanian psychiatrist residing in Germany, indicated that the project relies on a mechanism that matches users who seek mental health support and treatment with doctors and specialists suitable for them, indicating that the platform allows users to register their information to obtain a paid subscription, then the Arab Therapy team By introducing them to the best therapist based on their needs and the information they provided during their registration, then users book weekly audio/video sessions with their therapist, plus they can send unlimited messages to the therapist around the clock for the duration of their subscription.
Delbah said: “The idea of the project was born while working as a psychiatrist in Germany when he noticed how happy Arab auditors are when they discover that their psychiatrist is an Arab who speaks the same mother tongue and understands their culture, which makes them feel that they can freely express what they are facing, in addition to not having to explain Arab cultural and societal beliefs. and its consequences for their psychiatrist, which prompted him to think about and develop the project to help Arabs in all parts of the world obtain mental health services.”
The Arab Therapy project is one of a group of projects that received funding and support from the Flat Six Labs Fund. They are peers through a wide network that includes hundreds of business mentors, investors, and various entities.”
And Delbah indicated that the project aspires to expand and develop to provide psychological and health support services to people in all fields, not only in mental health, and to be the first place to provide health services with international standards, but in an Arabic language.
He stressed that the project is currently based on a website, but work is underway to launch a copy of it as an application for mobile phones at a later stage to spread the benefit.
He stressed that the project and the platform have the advantages of facilitating anyone’s access to help and psychological treatment at any time and place, but the most important feature is the observance of privacy, as the information of users in Arab Therapy is treated with high confidentiality and privacy, whether the information that is sent to customer service , registration information, or information that the user shares with the therapist during sessions and throughout the treatment journey.
He pointed out that the idea of providing the service online is suitable for people who are embarrassed to see a doctor, as the platform allows them to conduct an online session from inside their rooms without anyone noticing.