How does it work? Better Help Conversation…
After filling out a survey to determine what particular flavour of mental you are, you’re coupled with a counsellor, who you can mercilessly swap for a different one at any time. (I got Dr. Laura Dabney, from Virginia). You then start an immediate messaged treatment session that both you and your counsellor can drop in and out of, and which could, in theory, go on and on up until among you ultimately passed away.
What does it cost?
You get a complimentary seven-day trial – similar to a complimentary Netflix or Amazon Prime trial, except with method more questions about what your childhood was like. After that, it costs from , 24.50 a week for unrestricted message-based counselling and one ‘free’ phone session with your counsellor monthly. Yeah, I don’t get how it’s totally free either, but whatever.
How much is BetterHelp monthly?
Filtering that through instant messaging may be useful if you find the concept of baring your soul to a complete stranger a bit awks. You will not get the same connection just like in person counselling, however the semi-anonymity might make it much easier to open if you’ve been consuming 2 bottles of rum and dancing around in your dead nan’s bridal gown every night.
She first ascertained the scale of my anxiety, what triggers it– social situations, meeting people for the very first time– and then dived headlong into my fractious childhood (separated parents, stretched familial relationships, bullied in junior school). She was pretty nosey tbh, but then that’s her task, isn’t it?
Overall, the service is remarkably slick. The discussion can be a little stop-starty at times, but it was in fact a far smoother and more on-tap experience than I anticipated. I even got rapid reactions to messages over the weekend, which was unanticipated.
Talkspace vs Betterhelp
The fact you can modify messages prior to sending them means you’re not likely to blurt out something revealing and vulnerable in the heat of the minute. So profound minutes of realisation might be tough to come by if you can’t get an unwinded flow going.
Who do I think it might it be good for?
Anybody with a low-end mental health problem who’s cool with getting counselled in a really internet-y, 2016-y way. If you’re living under the blackest, bleakest cloud possible and require major attention (and potentially some medications), most likely isn’t for you Better Help Conversation