#text therapy

Sure, I don’t mind explaining. The app was Talkspace - it advertises itself as an online ‘counseling’ app but it’s realistically just a business like Uber that hires counselors for lower pay to capitalize on quick service. 

Good things that Talkspace sells itself on: 

Round the clock online access 

...so you can get in touch with a therapist anywhere, especially if your country doesn’t offer counseling or therapy, or if their services are difficult to obtain. 

Text only therapy options

You can choose to communicate through text entirely, and don’t have to do video calls if that’s something you’re not comfortable with. 

Bad things that Talkspace doesn’t advertise but are still true: 

It’s not an ideal therapy environment. 

The people they hire may be certified specialists, but they are working for low pay, working with ridiculous deadlines and under weird conditions. I don’t blame people for trying them - and I don’t blame the therapists who work there. But the reality is, it’s not good for either party. 

Therapists are expected to be ‘on call’ as it were. The clients are given an open text window and are given access to what is essentially a Reply To Me button which alerts the therapist. 

What this means is that you are leaving a message and ringing a bell on the counter going ‘ok, time for you to answer me, right NOW’. Not only is this not a great approach to counseling, it creates a weird disconnect and doesn’t really make it a conversation, not to mention putting pressure on the provider to answer at unreasonable hours. 

If you want to know more, read some reviews from the therapists who worked for Talkspace. 

Your information is not as confidential 

...as it would be with a standard provider in a normal therapy setting. You can find out more on this page about their Privacy Policy - and yes, most of it is just standard stuff like passwords, demographics, etc, but they make caveats by saying ‘anything you choose to share‘ which means all of your chat conversations with your provider. :/

You have very little choice over what counselor you actually get.

Yes, you get a superficial choice in the beginning, when they give you a little questionnaire about what you want to work on, but these are just 3 almost randomly selected people that they throw at you to give the illusion of choice. 

You can tell them you want to focus on ADHD management or PTSD or something else, but after that, the person you get is going to be a bit of a gumball from the machine. I wanted a therapist that is specifically LGBTQ friendly and an atheist - I couldn’t specify these requests anywhere, and you just have to hope that the provider will reveal such things on their profile willingly before you get into an awkward conversation with them about beliefs. 

Furthermore, the people you end up having to choose from can have any sort of training, from Licensed Professional Counselors to a Psych PhD to just someone with a Master’s Degree in a related field. 

The counselor you are working with may be tab-switching between 5 different people at the same time. 

They are just one human person, and realistically cannot develop any sort of relationship with you in this manner. Some of them will mistake your info for another patient’s info, some will forget what you told them - forget where you live, what your circumstances are, etc. Yes, they can refresh by reading the chat backlog, but that’s a terrible working environment - for them AND for you. 

How much does it cost? 

They have several plans based on what you want to be doing. The cheapest is texting-only for $260 per month. Then if you want video sessions included, the price goes up. Extra specific counseling also increases it. 

There ARE coupons and offers of free trials (such as the stuff I took advantage of to try it out for myself) but they require your Credit Card info when you confirm your service selection, so if you only want to try it out, make sure to cancel before the next month bills automatically. 

Even if you don’t have a coupon or a free trial on hand, when you sign up with an account they will connect you to what is essentially a receptionist who is tasked with Customer Retention, so you can explain you cannot pay the full price and more often than not, they’ll grab a Discount for you immediately. 

If it’s so bad, then why did you use it instead of using regular therapy, you idiot? 

Okay, I’ve gotten several questions like this already and I want to put this issue to rest:

I tried it because I had a coupon and decided I wanted to see it for myself. 

I tried it because I don’t HAVE access to regular therapy - I’m not in the US, the counseling services where I live are... not great, and I simply don’t have the resources to go find myself a foreign therapist! 

I tried it because I like to experience things personally and because the money I paid for one month was money I had in my pocket and COULD spend.

And that’s the important thing, I think. If you have expandable income or a coupon or a free month trial - TRY IT! Why the hell not? If you go into it knowing that it will likely be underwhelming but you are willing to see for yourself, there’s no harm in doing so. I also specifically WANTED to experience this for myself in order to be able to make a post like this and talk about my personal experiences. 

Just keep the above things in mind, don’t use the Reply By button and be reasonable with your expectations.

Trying this new thing called talk space, where all of my correspondence with a therapist is online, through an app on my phone or on my laptop.

I do have a couple of free sessions because of my job, so I'm not fully sure about the price.

Text from my dear friend, Andy