St. John's Counselling Service Depression and Unhappiness Program

Over 33 years ago a commitment was made by St. John's Cathedral to provide both a spiritual and counselling connection with the Hong Kong community. Today that counselling commitment continues to grow in services and resources for Hong Kong's vibrant multi-cultural community at St. John's Counselling Service (SJCS) for children, teens, adults and organizations, irregardless of race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, religion or faith.  We provide counselling services for Chinese, Spanish, Malay, French, and English speaking clients with our well educated and experienced counsellors who are from Hong Kong, U.S., U.K. Australia, South Africa, France, Canada, Malaysia and New Zealand. In other words, whether our clients are non-religious, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindi or any other religion or ethnic background, our counselling services are based upon a positive psychology model that focuses on growth and happiness.

St. John's Counselling Service continues to enhance our commitment to strengthening the health of our community with both an out-patient mood disorder counselling service in Hong Kong and a residential treatment/rehabilitation program with our rehab partners in Thailand, UK, US and South Africa. Our measurement of success in our depression counselling service is not about how many days or years a person has not been depressed, but instead, our counselling success is measured on two key and sustaining forces that allow a productive and pleasant life to be an enduring reality: 1) maintaining a healthy body-mind (exercise, diet, learning) and 2) living the happy life (principles of positive psychology - lifestyle, mindset, balance of work-life).

Our Depression - Unhappiness Philosophy
Depression is the "common cold of mental health." Each and every one of us will experience some form of depression (either symptoms of depression or a disorder) in our lives, with fewer than 10% of the population requiring long-term medication and hospitalization. With new discoveries in medicine (SPECT brain scans) and medications (4th generation anti-depressants), and the advancement of positive psychology science and cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, the treatment of depression has made great strides in allowing both the short-term, chronic and/or acute depressed individual return to a manageable and normal life. In short, the majority of those who suffer depression will not only recover and go on and live a productive and pleasant life, they will do it in most instances without lifetime medication or short-term hospitalization.

Yet, there still remains today vast disagreements in the healthcare, legal and academic circles regarding two key elements of depression: 1) it's causality, or if you will, the nature vs nurture argument of why depression occurs; and 2) what type of treatment is most successful, or if you will, medication vs therapy (or both). We take a scientific (brain-based and evidence-based), comprehensive, caring and realistic approach to providing therapy to our clients who are experiencing depression. Our approach, entitled Positive Options, integrates over 20 years of research and clinical experiences from around the world that helps individuals and families better understand the causality and treatment elements of depression. Thus, our Positive Options model focuses on two key processes in each counselling session: 1) helping our clients reduce the unpleasantness or anguish of depression (the therapy part), and 2) empowering our clients with a set of tools to address several areas of growth such as coping skills, self-esteem, anger management, decision making and optimal thinking (the learning part). In short, learning how to better manage the unpleasantness in life as well as how to maximize the happy life experiences in almost all cases ensures a quicker recovery from depression.

Overall our Positive Options therapy and learning approach allows each client to first understand the elements of depression. For example, we increase our patient's awareness of the two (2) key forces of how we "feel" when depressed. In the first instance, Mood, or what we call the "tides" of human feelings, is the backdrop of a person's overall affect that can intensify our happy or sad emotions. Our moods are influenced by DNA and genetics, our health (diet, sleep, medical conditions), the time of day or night, the balance-imbalance of neurotransmitters, and other chemical-biological factors (hormones, etc). For example, some people may wake up in the morning after a wonderful night out on the town and have a "low tide" (feeling melancholy) even though the night before they were having a happy experience. The memories of last night might be pleasant but the early morning feeling is "blah." Emotions on the other hand are what we call the "waves" of human feelings, those reactions we have based upon what we experience in our day-to-day environments (work-home-school-social). In other words, depending on how we think and interpret an event in our life will cause an emotion to subsequently be experienced. A good example here is when one person may cry at a love scene in a romantic movie whereas the next person may simply smile or giggle. Simply put, our program helps our clients how to better understand and manage the moods and emotions that can cause symptoms of depression.

Our Assessment
St. John's Counselling Service provides a careful, caring, straight-forward, and comprehensive assessment process before counselling is started. This assessment process usually requires a 1 to 3 assessment sessions (sometimes assessments may require additional sessions due to additional healthcare elements) to ensure that the counselling program is structured to meet the individual needs of each client and to establish a sense of normalcy to reduce any social stigmatism and fears. Assessment may include psychometric testing, medical exam, time lines of major events, family tree mapping and other processes to have a comprehensive understanding of the depression and the person.

Our Counselling Model
As a positive psychology centre, our approach to providing services with our clients who are experiencing depression involves a personalized, action-oriented program. We first ensure that the stereotypes and mislabels about depression are removed and a sense of normalcy is instead interjected into the program. Secondly, we focus on the four areas where the depression may have an impact: unpleasant feelings, low life energy, anxiety and fuzzy cognitive functioning. Every person experiences depression differently and we make sure our clients understand where that depression is impacting their health. Thirdly, we carefully explore both the thoughts and emotions that are not the true cause of the depression, but instead, what thoughts and emotions are actually reinforcing the unhappiness. Simply put, once the supply chain of the negative reinforcers have been found and removed, the subsequent depression becomes that much more easier to manage and treat. The fourth stage, action, then involves a cognitive behavioral approach where we explore the source and types of thoughts that cause anger, frustration, depression and low self-esteem. And finally, the fifth stage, maintenance, is where we strive to ensure the client is fully recovered from normal depression by way of strengthening the new self-image, placing a focus on the self instead of problems (self-efficacy), and designing a healthier lifestyle.

Our Caring Counsellors
St. John's Counselling Service counsellors are either Counselling/Clinical Psychologists and/or Clinical Social Workers with years of counselling experience in depression-unpleasant emotions and reputable academic qualifications from Hong Kong and overseas institutions. Our counsellors are interactive in each counselling session, striking a balance between active listening and exploring options and opportunities to resolve many of life's challenges and "bumps in the road" that sometimes lead to depression and other unpleasant emotions. SJCS counsellors are both male and female with English, Chinese, French, Malay and Spanish language skills.

Third Party - Insurance Reimbursement
Certain healthcare insurance policies reimburse their members for certain costs associated with out-patient counselling and residential treatment programs. Please contact your insurance provider for further information and benefit details. St. John's Counselling Service also works with employers and their Employee Assistance Programs to provide special packages for their employees and family members as well.

Registration
You may call us for more information on (852) 2525 7207 or 2525 7208, or email your request at info@sjcshk.com. All information provided is strictly confidential and private, and is never released to any third party without our client's written consent.

Treatment Fees
Hong Kong Out-Patient and After Care Program: Out-patient counselling fees are based on a sliding fee scale, taking into account your monthly income and the type of counselling program you require (short, medium or long term). Our affordable fees are structured to ensure our clients have the most optimal chances of completing their counselling program.

Thailand Program: Program fees in Thailand are based on a set fee from our overseas providers. Fees do not include travel to and from Hong Kong to Thailand. Program fees do include lodging, food, medical exams, group sessions, 1:1 counselling, and other health building activities such as nutrition classes, exercise, meditation, yoga, and other activities. Each program is carefully explained to our clients to ensure we find the right program that fits their work, family and financial constraints. All overseas Thailand programs are conducted in English.

Hong Kong Medical Depression Program: For those who may require medication, fees are based on several factors, to include whether the medical service requires solely out-patient care and/or additional tests such as sleep studies and further chemistry-laboratory analysis. Corresponding therapy and after-care counselling is provided by St. John's Counselling Service therapists. Actual number of days for medical treatment (medication) vary, depending on the healthcare status of each client.

Our Affiliations

As an Organizational Member of BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy) we are bound by its Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy, the Ethical Guidelines for Researching Counselling and Psychotherapy (where organizations undertake research) and subject to the Professional Conduct Procedure for the time being in force.

As a professional member of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), St. John's Counselling Service is able to collaborate with one of the largest counselling associations worldwide in working with students, schools and their families in addressing academic, personal/social and career development issues. This collaboration also allows us to remain current with counselling tools and strategies for Hong Kong's schools and families to ensure our children and teens can seek a healthy balance between learning and fun.

St. John's Counselling Service is also in partnership with Hong Kong University HKU Family Institute, City University (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of New England (Australia), and Monash University (Australia) master's degree counselling and psychology programs as an internship placement centre for their students to acquire advanced counselling skills and knowledge as so provided by our positive psychology counselling model and 33 years of experience in counselling.

Email: info@sjcshk.com