Mental health platform demystifies therapy and connects Hongkongers with counsellors who consult online
- Jessica Yeung knew from personal experience that Hong Kong lacks online mental health counselling resources, so she launched a website to put that right
- Common Care Central tells you what to expect from therapy and lets you have counselling at home, removing the fear of being seen leaving a therapist’s office
When Jessica Yeung Chen-yee was 14 years old, she felt lost and confused, and sought help through online counselling.
“I was feeling sad, a sense of emptiness, confused about what my life direction was going to be, it felt like, ‘Am I broken’? is there something wrong with me?” she remembers.
But as a teenager the information on mental health she found on the internet was very clinical. Without her parents’ knowledge, she had a few one-off sessions with different therapists, but came away disappointed.
“I thought we [the therapist and I] would just click immediately and I would walk away feeling, ‘Oh, I know what I can do with myself now’,” she recalls.
Fast forward to early June this year and Yeung, now 30, has launched Common Care Central, a platform for people with mental health issues to find the resources they need and therapists who are available for online sessions.
“It’s exciting to see we already have people booking sessions and they are inquiring about our service,” she says, with 18 therapists helping clients aged 18 to 50.