Invoices are sent before the session. Payment is due at the time of the session.

Other payment options include FPS, Bank transfer

PayMe, STRIPE credit card (3.4% fee).

Dr. Rick Smith Limited does not accept insurance. We will work with you to complete insurance paperwork, but there is no guarantee that sessions will be covered or reimbursed.

You get to decide how much time is useful to you. Time is billed and invoiced equally. This includes time spent in sessions, time responding to e-mails, document preparation, phone consultations, in-between session meetings, etc.

There is a 200HKD discount for cash payments on individual sessions (i.e. 2000 HKD).

We try to never let cost stand in the way of care and donate up to 10 subsidised hours monthly to clients in need. Please ask for a subsidised session if necessary.

Experience has shown that a few conditions are required for changes to be successful:

• Commitment- As with most things, people tend to get out of this what they put into it. If we can commit to trying a new approach, your child will see significant changes.

• Hard work between the sessions- Attending weekly sessions is not enough. Our work is a collaborative experience. You must be willing to support the plan that we co-create.

• Taking independent steps- When teens are overly anxious or distracted, they may need their parents to take initiative and make changes without their prior approval. Think of your child as having different motivations; some of his motives represent the anxiety, others represent his ability to cope. By acting independently of what he is saying right now, you are aligning yourself with the motivations for positive change and giving him your support.

• SPACE is not couples therapy. However, many adults need support too. I ask adults to responsible for their own feelings. That means that they may need to recruit their partners help during moments of high-stress or overwhelming emotion. This might also mean finding their own outside support.

All identifiable information is kept strictly confidential. Only information that is agreed upon will be shared. A parent must introduce teachers or other professionals via e-mail with explicit consent as to what can be shared.

When working with adolescents, there are two factors that predict success. Those factors are:

1) Practicing skills in between sessions.

2) Taking steps to increase support and reducing accommodations.

If young people begin making changes but the home environment does not change, those changes won’t stick.

Many times, when young people are under stress and anxiety, they will also externalise problems, including rage, aggression, or destroying physical objects or property. Even when otherwise calm children experience accommodations being reduced, they may react with irritability, aggression, or anger. Children use their parents to escape distress, so when parents refuse to accommodate, the child’s distress escalates. Children go into fight or flight mode. Parents can find it difficult to follow through on plans to reduce accommodations when this happens. It’s important to understand where this aggression is coming from and what it means so that parents can avoid escalating it and to determine how to respond. The key is realizing that we’re always reinforcing something, so try to only reinforce desirable behaviours. Typically, unless the child is putting themselves or someone else in danger, the best response to an aggressive child is no response at all.