Frequently Asked Questions
What can I do in the theratalk app?
1) Psychological Screening
You can talk to our chatbot Amy for free to complete a screening to understand your current anxiety and depression level. Once you enter the chatroom, Amy will be available to you immediately.
2) Tele-mental health services
You can use TheraTalk to connect to a professionally trained counselor and receive text-based counseling services through our app. After you complete the screening with Amy, you can press ‘Start Trial’ to enter your payment information. Once the payment information is confirmed, our customer service representative will match you with a counselor. The first 3 days is a free trial. After the free trial, you will be charged HKD 349 for a week-long service.
Additionally, you can also choose to connect with a counselor through video counseling, you may connect to the scheduling page through our app when you talk to Amy.
3) Ask psychology-related questions
If you are puzzled with your emotions, but not sure if online counseling is good for you, please contact us using the menu on the right-hand corner, our customer service representative will enter the chatroom as soon as they are available to answer your questions.
4) Read psychology articles
There are different psychology articles for our clients to read under the ‘Resource’ tab.
What is tele-mental health/online counseling?
Traditionally, if you want to meet with a counselor, you would have to wait for a few weeks or even months until they are available. When you use TheraTalk, you can send messages to our counselors anytime, anywhere at your convenience. Our counselors would reply to you regularly, to ensure that you are receiving consistent care.
Our chat services are encrypted, you may choose to engage with the counselor anonymously.
is text-based counseling effective?
There is growing evidence in research that the effectiveness of text-based counseling is comparable to in-person counseling. At times, text-based counseling is more suitable for clients who need more time to process the conversations and those who have a busy schedule.
how is the charge compared to traditional counseling?
Traditionally, an in-person counseling service in Hong Kong costs about HKD 600-2000 per session (45-60 minutes) in the private sector. TheraTalk make use of technology to provide an alternative to traditional counseling, making counseling affordable, accessible and convenient. Our weeklong service starts at HKD 349 a week, which is a very competitive price compared to other services in the market.
what in “unlimited” service?
Clients can subscribe to our “Unlimited” text-based counseling service through our App. We will match you with a counselor according to your needs and preference. You can send an unlimited amount of messages to the counselor (1000 words max per message), and receive regular replies from the counselor. The counselor would reply 5 days out of a 7 day week.
what is the difference between counseling and therapy?
To decide whether to receive psychotherapy or psychological counseling, generally speaking, there is no specific rule, it depends on each individual’s situation. To put it simply, those with more serious problems would typically benefit more from psychotherapy while those with more minor problems can benefit from psychological counseling.
Clients who seek psychotherapy treatments generally have noticeable mood swings and deterioration in their mental and physical health. These conditions will affect their daily life, work (school), and social interaction. These changes can be easily noticed by family and friends except the person involved.
Clients who receive psychological counseling are people who are encountering more minor disturbances. Although suffering from some unstable emotions, these people can generally live, work, and maintain some social activities as usual. Moreover, these psychological changes are more difficult to detect and detect except for the person involved or the relatives and friends who are in frequent contact.
Psychological counseling’s goal to assist the client to go through the emotional/psychological turmoils they are encountering in life, and it is more important for the clients to understand themselves in-depth, and to recognize their inner resources. Psychotherapy is used to help clients who are diagnosed with mood disorders, which focuses more on symptom reduction, both types of services are carried out by professionally trained practitioners. All of Theratalk's counselors can provide these both types of services, but online counseling will focus more on counseling.
who are theratalk’s counselor?
Our counselors are trained mental health practitioners, all of our counselors hold a Master’s or Doctorate degree in psychology-related professions, including but not limited to Clinical Psychology, Educational Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Counseling, Expressive Arts Therapy and more. We specialize in different issues, including parenting stress, couple relationship, anxiety, depression, work-place stress, family violence and more. All of our counselors are vetted rigorously and holds membership in their respective professional organizations.
how does the trial period work?
The first 3 days of our text-based counseling service are free. You only need to fill in your name, email and credit card information to activate the trial period.
During the trial period, your credit card will not be charged. From the 4th day onward, your credit card will be charged automatically weekly if you have not unsubscribed from our service. You may choose to unsubscribe from our service anytime via the confirmation e-mail you are receiving after activating our service.
why do i need to fill in my credit card information to activate the trial?
The reason we ask you to provide the payment information to ensure that the service will not end abruptly after the free trial period ends. We will send the authorization request to your financial institution to confirm whether your payment method is valid. No fee will be charged for this type of application, but in some cases, it may affect your available account balance. If you do not continue to use our service, your account will not be charged.
how do i unsubscribe from your service?
Clients can unsubscribe from our service anytime through the confirmation email. 情請按此。
CAN i request to change to another counselor？
During the free trial period, we would not accommodate this request. After the free trial period, you may request to change to another counselor for free for one time. If you are making a second change, you will be charged a $300 HKD administration fee.
can i choose which counselor to work with?
If you want to work with a specific counselor, please request this when you talk to our customer service representative. Depending on the counselor’s availability, we try our best to accommodate the needs of our clients. We would request a $300 HKD administrative fee for such a request. If a client unsubscribed to our service and return afterward, requesting to work with his/her previous counselor, we would also charge a $300 administration fee.
＊Please be aware that due to the administrative time needed to coordinate with the counselor it may take use longer to match you with a counselor.
can i stop theratalk’s service temporarily?
If there are life circumstances that you would need to temporarily stop using our services, please discuss with your counselor. Each client can temporarily stop the service for 3 weeks and return to the same counselor afterward.
are there other payment options?
We accept Payme or direct deposit, please contact us if you cannot pay with a credit card.