How does it work? Betterhelp Free Week…
After filling out a questionnaire to ascertain what specific flavour of mental you are, you’re paired with a counsellor, who you can mercilessly swap for a various one at any time. (I got Dr. Laura Dabney, from Virginia). You then start an instant messaged therapy session that both you and your counsellor can drop in and out of, and which could, in theory, go on and on till one of you ultimately died.
What does it cost?
You get a totally free seven-day trial – similar to a free Netflix or Amazon Prime trial, except with way more concerns about what your youth resembled. After that, it costs from , 24.50 a week for unlimited message-based counselling and one ‘complimentary’ phone session with your counsellor monthly. Yeah, I don’t 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 immediate messaging might be useful. You will not get the exact same connection similar to in person counselling, however the semi-anonymity might make it much easier to open up if you’ve been drinking two bottles of rum and dancing around in your dead nan’s bridal gown every night.
She first ascertained the scale of my stress and anxiety, what triggers it– social scenarios, satisfying individuals for the very first time– and then dived headlong into my fractious childhood (divorced parents, stretched familial relationships, bullied in junior school). She was quite nosey tbh, however then that’s her job, isn’t it?
In general, the service is impressively 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 speedy reactions to messages over the weekend, which was unforeseen.
Talkspace vs Betterhelp
The truth you can edit messages before sending them indicates you’re not likely to blurt out something vulnerable and revealing in the heat of the minute. Extensive 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 benefit?
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 need major attention (and perhaps some medications), most likely isn’t for you Betterhelp Free Week