How does it work? “Betterhelp”…
After filling out a questionnaire to ascertain what specific flavour of psychological you are, you’re paired with a counsellor, who you can mercilessly switch 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, go on and on up until one of you eventually died.
What does it cost?
You get a complimentary seven-day trial – much like a free Netflix or Amazon Prime trial, other than with way more concerns 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 don’t get how it’s complimentary either, but whatever.
How much is BetterHelp monthly?
Filtering that through immediate messaging may be practical if you discover the concept of baring your soul to a stranger a bit awks. You won’t get the very same connection as with face-to-face counselling, but the semi-anonymity may make it simpler to open if you’ve been drinking two bottles of rum and dancing around in your dead nan’s wedding dress every night.
She initially determined the scale of my stress and anxiety, what triggers it– social circumstances, meeting people for the very first time– and after that dived headlong into my fractious youth (divorced parents, strained familial relationships, bullied in junior school). She was pretty nosey tbh, but then that’s her task, isn’t it?
In general, the service is impressively slick. The discussion can be a little stop-starty sometimes, but it was actually a far smoother and more on-tap experience than I expected. I even got rapid responses to messages over the weekend, which was unexpected.
Talkspace vs Betterhelp
The fact you can modify messages prior to sending them implies you’re unlikely to blurt out something revealing and vulnerable in the heat of the moment. Extensive minutes of realisation might be difficult to come by if you can’t get a relaxed flow going.
Who do I think it might it be good for?
Anyone with a low-end mental health problem who’s cool with getting counselled in an extremely internet-y, 2016-y method. If you’re living under the blackest, bleakest cloud possible and need severe attention (and possibly some medications), most likely isn’t for you “Betterhelp”