I talk a lot in my videos about problems
for which the solution is to see a therapist.
And that's easy to say, but how do you find one?
I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist,
and I make mental health education videos.
I had a patient tell me
that they found a therapist using BetterHelp.
I'd heard about BetterHelp several years ago
but really didn't understand what it was.
And at that time, online therapy wasn't widely accepted.
But now post-COVID, it's the norm.
So I decided to take a look on the inside of BetterHelp
to see what it was really about.
I went through the signup process
and I was assigned a therapist.
And here's what I found.
The first thing is, BetterHelp is not therapy.
It's a platform that therapists use to deliver therapy.
For a monthly fee,
you get weekly sessions with a licensed therapist
either by phone or video.
You also get to send unlimited messages
for which your therapist will usually respond once a day.
Your therapist can respond with feedback
or send you worksheets to complete and discuss.
This messaging feature is here huge.
Because traditionally, therapists want to keep the therapy
within the confines of the session.
So if you have comments
or you want to talk about how you're feeling,
you need to wait until your next appointment.
With BetterHelp, there's a live chat feature
that you can use if your therapist is available.
The live chatting does not count
against your weekly sessions and as an additional way
for you to talk with your therapist.
Another interesting feature is the online journal.
I've talked about journaling
and how it's a great way to process emotions,
or work through a problem, or just self-reflect.
You have the option to make your journal notes visible
to your therapist or keep it private.
The therapist may use journal prompts
as part of your therapy.
Here's the feature that I really like.
They have these daily groupinars.
It's a live online group session.
They have several topics to choose from,
and it's led by one of the many therapists.
And they're super easy to sign up for
and you're not limited.
I've attended several of these
and the information presented was very informative.
Some of them make their slides available for download,
and one therapist gave us a link
to his free course on Udemy that went into more depth
on the things he presented in the groupinars.
When you sign up,
you're asked a series of questions about your preferences.
They take that information and match you with a therapist.
If at some point you don't think it's a good match,
you can request a different therapist.
Feeling like you don't click with your therapist
happens all the time in traditional therapy.
But some people will just stick with a therapist
or stop going to therapy because that's a hassle
to start over and find another person.
The BetterHelp platform makes it an easier process though
to switch therapists.
What's the price?
The cost is 60 to $80 a week billed monthly.
So that's 240 to $320 for a four-week month.
That's a bargain for a non-insurance rate,
especially for what you get.
The going rate here in Atlanta
for a master's level therapist is about 150
to $175 a session.
So you're looking at about $600 a month
which is twice as much.
And you don't get the unlimited messaging
in between sessions.
Now, I have to say, the pricing is what drove
some of my skepticism about the quality of the therapy
because after all, you get what you pay for, right?
Well, these therapists don't have overhead costs.
I'm in solo practice with an employee,
an office space that I'm not using, utilities, et cetera.
And it's not uncommon for a practice like mine
to have 50% overhead costs.
So for every $100 I get, 50 of it goes towards overhead.
So with little or no overhead,
you can afford to charge less.
So all of this sounds really good.
What are the negatives?
Well, I actually had a hard time finding one.
And I went in looking for negatives.
I had an elitism attitude about the delivery model.
I thought it was like some phone chat line
where you don't even know
if you're talking to a real therapist.
And I don't even know where I got that from.
It was just prejudice on my part.
I looked up my therapist
and found her active Georgia license.
I looked up some of the other therapists
who were doing the webinars
and they had active licenses in their states.
And that's public information by the way.
Another preconceived idea that I had was
that maybe the therapists were fresh out of school
and needing practice.
I hate that I thought that.
Because a new therapist is still trained to do therapy,
and they have to work under supervision
for a set number of hours
before they can even become licensed.
But many of the therapists doing the groupinars
had years of experience.
The only thing that I would consider a relative negative is
the 30-minute session time.
I think 30 minutes goes by fast for a psychotherapy session.
And usually with traditional therapy,
you'll have 45 to 50 minute sessions.
But with the online model,
I think the messaging in between sessions
makes up for the shorter appointments.
You can cover a lot of ground with back and forth messaging,
like getting feedback on homework assignments
or discussing some of your journaling.
So that's the platform.
I went in skeptical about
the quality of what you get for the price,
but my mind was opened.
So I'm thankful options like this are available
to make therapy more accessible.
Give it a look using the link below,
which is betterhelp.com/drmarks.
If you sign up for the service,
you get 10% off your first month
and I get a referral commission.
And I use that to offset
the cost of producing my educational content for you.
All the best with your therapy.
See you next time.