By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong You probably don't think much about your dreams. Most professionals don't. Dreams feel peripheral — the strange, forgettable fragments that occasionally surface as you're reaching for your phone in the morning, dissolving before you can quite hold them. Interesting, maybe. Meaningful, possibly. But not exactly a professional concern. I want to make a case that this is a mistake. Not because your dreams contain hidden messages that ne

Sleep Apnea in Hong Kong: What It Is, What It Costs, and Why So Many Professionals Don't Know They Have It By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong You go to bed. You sleep. You wake up eight hours later. And you feel terrible. Not the ordinary tiredness of a late night or a disrupted sleep. Something more persistent. The kind of tiredness that rest doesn't seem to touch. The mid-morning fog. The afternoon wall. The coffee that helps for an hour and then doesn't. The sense

Burnout vs Depression: A Hong Kong Psychologist's Guide to Getting the Distinction Right By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong There is a conversation I have more often than almost any other in my practice. Someone arrives having been running on empty for longer than they can precisely identify. The work has lost its meaning. The mornings are heavy. The things that used to replenish them no longer do. Sleep is disrupted. Concentration is unreliable. The people closest to

The Benefits of Quality Sleep That Most Hong Kong Professionals Have Stopped Expecting By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong I want to ask you something before we go any further. Not about your sleep schedule. Not about your screen time or your caffeine intake or whether you've tried the breathing exercise. Just this: When did you last wake up feeling genuinely ready for the day? Not functional. Not resigned to it. Not already planning the first coffee before your feet h

By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong Here is a question that sounds simple until you try to answer it honestly. Who are you when the work isn't in the room? Not what do you do. Not what have you achieved. Not what are you building or managing or responsible for. But who are you — the specific person, with particular qualities and preferences and ways of being in the world — when none of that professional context is present. For many of the people I work with in Hong Kon

By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong There is a word that comes up constantly in conversations about mental health, wellbeing, and professional performance. It appears in corporate wellness programmes, in meditation apps, in the advice given after someone mentions they're struggling. The word is calm. Calm down. Stay calm. Find your calm. The prescription is so familiar that it has become almost reflexive — the default response to stress, to difficulty, to anything that

By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong Let me start with what therapy is not. It is not lying on a couch talking about your childhood while someone with a notepad nods slowly and says very little. It is not something you do when you've had a breakdown. It is not a confession. It is not a sign that you cannot cope. It is not reserved for people with clinical diagnoses, serious mental illness, or lives that have come apart. It is not — and this matters particularly for the

By John Corbett | Psychologist | Hong Kong The deal closes. The wire transfer clears. The lawyers send their final invoices. The announcement goes out — the LinkedIn post, the press release, the congratulatory messages from people you haven't spoken to in years. Your phone doesn't stop for 48 hours. And then it does. And in the quiet that follows, something happens that almost nobody warned you about. You feel terrible. Not grateful. Not relieved. Not the version of yourself