Counselling Service

What can our counselling psychologist offer?

Life is full of challenges and sometimes these challenges may bring about stress. Patients may experience emotional turmoil when they are diagnosed to have a severe illness, when they have a miscarriage or an unsuccessful infertility treatment, or when first-time mothers are changed with baby care etc. They do not have mental diseases that warrant treatments by psychiatrists. A counselling psychologist is the most appropriate professional to provide assistance. Our counselling psychologist is a registered counselling psychologist with the Hong Kong Psychological Society, and can offer professional service to the following groups of patients:

Patients who need hysterectomy or mastectomy；
Couples going through fertility treatments；
Pregnancy loss；
Postpartum blues.

Patients who need hysterectomy or mastectomy:

While the reason for having a hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) or a mastectomy (surgical removal of the breasts) may by itself exert a huge psychological toll on the women, the absence of what is traditionally considered a sign of feminism may bring upon an even more significant impact emotionally. Women after the surgery may think that they are less feminine and less attractive to their spouse, and this will negatively affect the marital relationship in married couples. The impact may even be more pronounced in single women who may not have the courage to start a new relationship. They feel a sense of loss and even depression. Our counselling psychologist can help women rebuild their body image and self-esteem, and thus restore their relationship with their spouse. The aim is to help them achieve both physical and psychological recovery.

Couples going through fertility treatments:

Most people just focus on the physical sufferings from fertility treatments, and have overlooked the impact of the treatments on the psychology of the infertile couple. Many a times, couples with infertility may suffer from grief, depression, anger and frustration. They commonly experience anxiety during the course of treatment, especially when the treatment fails. Some may even have relationship problems with their spouse and other close family members. Our counselling psychologist can help couples build coping strategies to deal with different stress. Interpersonal therapy which focuses on improving relationships can help restore family harmony and relief anxiety and even depression. It has been shown that addressing psychological factors, such as stress, anxiety and depression, may increase the chance of fertility treatment success.

Pregnancy loss:

Miscarriage is a traumatic event for both women and men. It can lead to grief, anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It may take months or even years for the couple to recover psychologically from a miscarriage. The couple may struggle to cope with the pregnancy loss and the fear of having another miscarriage should the woman become pregnant again. This may lead to relationship breakdown between the couple and may even affect the dynamic of the whole family. Our counselling psychologist can help the couple and the family go through the difficult process of grieving, develop coping skills and rebuild their relationships so that they can start their new life again.

Postpartum blues:

It is common for women to experience baby blues or postpartum blues. They feel stressed, anxious, tired and weepy following the birth of their babies. This may result from a combination of many factors, such as a change in hormone levels after childbirth, stress involved in caring for a newborn, first-time motherhood, having a challenging baby who cries more than usual etc. Postpartum blues usually goes away on its own, when the new mothers settle down for baby care. But some women may experience a more serious mood disorder – postpartum depression. Postpartum depression can appear days or even months after delivery, and can last for months if left untreated. Our counselling psychologist can lend emotional support to mothers with postpartum blues or mild postpartum depression, and offer psychotherapy to help mothers learn how to manage their feelings and cope with problems so that they can come out of postpartum blues quickly. Through interviews and observations, our counselling psychologist can identify those mothers with more severe postpartum depression and can refer them to a psychiatrist early.

Our doctors treat our patients with the most advanced and the best evidence-based medical treatments, and our counselling psychologist looks after their psychological health. It is our noble goal to provide holistic care to all our patients and their family, to take care of their physical and mental well-being so that they will have a complete recovery. [ Refer to the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale]

Counselling Service