How does it work? Better Help Medium…
After filling in a survey to establish what specific flavour of mental you are, you’re coupled with a counsellor, who you can mercilessly swap for a various one at any time. (I got Dr. Laura Dabney, from Virginia). You then kick off an immediate messaged treatment session that both you and your counsellor can drop in and out of, and which could, in theory, continue up until one of you eventually passed away.
What does it cost?
You get a complimentary seven-day trial – much like a free Netflix or Amazon Prime trial, except with way more questions about what your childhood was like. After that, it costs from �,� 24.50 a week for unlimited message-based counselling and one ‘totally free’ phone session with your counsellor monthly. Yeah, I do not get how it’s totally free either, however whatever.
How much is BetterHelp monthly?
If you find the concept of baring your soul to a complete stranger a bit awks, filtering that through instant messaging might be helpful. You will not get the same connection as with face-to-face counselling, but the semi-anonymity may make it much easier to open if you have actually been consuming 2 bottles of rum and dancing around in your dead nan’s wedding dress every night.
She initially established the scale of my stress and anxiety, what activates it– social situations, satisfying 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 job, isn’t it?
In general, the service is impressively slick. The conversation can be a little stop-starty at times, but it was really a far smoother and more on-tap experience than I anticipated. I even got fast actions to messages over the weekend, which was unanticipated.
Talkspace vs Betterhelp
The reality you can edit messages prior to sending them indicates you’re unlikely to blurt out something vulnerable and revealing in the heat of the moment. Extensive moments of realisation may be hard to come by if you can’t get a relaxed flow going.
Who do I believe it might it benefit?
Anyone with a low-end psychological health problem who’s cool with getting counselled in a very internet-y, 2016-y method. If you’re living under the blackest, bleakest cloud possible and require severe attention (and potentially some medications), most likely isn’t for you Better Help Medium