What Counselling Costs in Hong Kong, and How Long It Takes
Because "it depends" is true and useless.
Max Hogan Counselling
THE PROBLEM NOBODY TALKS ABOUT
Most people who contact me have been looking for a while before they do.
Most people who contact me have been looking for a while before they do.
The hard part usually isn't deciding to try counselling. It's not knowing what you are signing up for.
Nobody publishes the thing you actually want to know. What is this going to cost me in total. How many sessions is this. How do I tell whether the person sitting opposite me is any good at it.
So here it is, including the parts that send you somewhere other than me.
What counselling actually costs in Hong Kong
Rates vary more here than most people expect, and price is not a reliable guide to quality.
Clinical psychologists: roughly HKD 1,800 to 3,000 for a session. They hold doctoral qualifications and can carry out formal assessment and diagnosis.
Experienced counsellors and psychotherapists: roughly HKD 1,000 to 2,200.
Counsellors earlier in practice, including me: roughly HKD 900 to 1,400.
Charity and sliding-scale services: from around HKD 300 to 600, based on your income. ReSource The Counselling Centre in Central, St John's Counselling Service, Oasis, and Jabez all work this way, in multiple languages.
Free: Mind HK runs a programme called iACT offering several sessions of low-intensity support at no cost for adults with mild to moderate difficulties. Public services through the Hospital Authority are free or low cost, with waiting times.
Details change. Check directly with any of them.
If money is the deciding factor, start with that list rather than with me. A counsellor you can afford to see twelve times is worth more than a counsellor you can afford to see twice.
What I charge
You get a counsellor whose every case is reviewed by a fully credentialed supervisor, at a rate that reflects where I am in my training.
So what does the whole thing cost?
This is the question nobody answers, so here are real numbers.
Most people start weekly and move to fortnightly once things are steadier. Weekly individual work is around HKD 4,800 a month. Fortnightly is half that.
Over a course of sessions:
Six individual sessions: HKD 7,200.
Twelve individual sessions: HKD 14,400.
Ten couples sessions at 90 minutes: HKD 18,000.
You are not committing to any of that. You pay session by session, you can stop at any point, and nothing is prepaid. But you asked what it costs, and that is what it costs.
How many sessions will I need
One clear, recent problem
Six to twelve sessions. A specific anxiety, a decision you cannot make, a loss, a transition you are stuck in the middle of.
Teenagers
Eight to twelve sessions, with parent check-ins alongside. Some teens need less than everyone expects. Some need a longer run.
A pattern that is older than you are.
Career exhaustion, identity loss, and the 'now what?' question.
Weekly at the start is standard. Most people move to fortnightly once things are steadier, which halves the monthly cost.
Research on this has been consistent for decades: a substantial proportion of people report meaningful improvement inside the first eight sessions, and the improvement keeps accumulating after that, more slowly. The single most common number of sessions anyone attends anywhere is one. Some of that is people getting what they came for. Most of it is fit.
Couples
Eight to sixteen sessions. Less if you have caught it early. More if there has been an affair, because rebuilding trust is slow and specific and cannot be rushed.
Progress is not a line
This is the part people are not warned about, and it is the reason a lot of people quit at the wrong moment.
Sessions three to five often feel worse than session one.
There is a reason for that. In session one you describe the problem. By session four you have stopped managing it and started looking at it directly, which is harder and does not feel like progress while it is happening.
Then it tends to move in steps rather than a slope. A month where nothing shifts, then a fortnight where something does. Two good weeks and a bad one is not failure. It is what change looks like from the inside.
If you feel worse and cannot tell whether that means it's working or it isn't, say so in the room. That conversation is often where the useful part starts.
How you will know it's working?
Vague improvement is not a standard. In the first few sessions we agree on what would actually be different, in terms specific enough to check.
Sleeping through the night. Getting through a disagreement without one of you leaving the room. Saying the thing you have been not saying for two years. Your son answering a question with more than one word.
At session four we stop and review. What has moved, what hasn't, and whether this is worth continuing. If it isn't, I would rather say so and help you find someone better suited than keep booking you in.
That review is built in. You don't have to ask for it and you don't have to justify wanting it.
How to choose a counsellor, including if it isn't me
Take this list to anyone you're considering. It works just as well on me.
What are your qualifications, and who supervises you? In Hong Kong "counsellor" is not a protected title and there is no statutory licensing, so anyone can use the word. Ask, and expect a straight answer.
Have you worked with this specific thing before? Not "do you work with couples." Have you worked with couples after an affair. Have you worked with a fourteen-year-old who has stopped talking.
What would we actually do? hey should be able to describe it without jargon. If the answer is entirely abstract, that is information.
How will we know if it isn't working, and what happens then? Anyone unwilling to discuss the possibility of referring you elsewhere is telling you something.
What do you charge, and do you offer reduced fees? Ask directly. Most people won't and most counsellors won't volunteer it.
And then the part no checklist covers. The strongest single predictor of whether counselling helps is not the method. It is whether the working relationship is any good. That means you are allowed to have a first call with three people and pick the one you can imagine being honest with. Nobody will be offended. It's the correct way to do this.
If HKD 1,200 doesn't work for you
I keep a small number of reduced-fee places at HKD 800 for people for whom the standard rate is the thing stopping them.
There is no application and no proof of income. Say so on the first call and we'll sort it out. If those places are full I'll tell you, and I'll point you toward the services above.
I would rather you got help somewhere than didn't get it here.
Still deciding
A 20-minute call, no cost, no obligation to book anything afterwards. Bring the questions above.