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Twelve Forty Two
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Question Mar 22, 2019 at 01:53 PM
  #1
Has anyone used online therapy such as Talk Space, Breakthrough, Better Help, etc.?

I have used the Better Help free trial offer in the past (and I see that they are a sponsor to this forum), but $200/month is a non-starter for me.

Are there any reputable sites that offer pay as you go (such as a one-time session or maybe pay for a week of unlimited access, etc.) as opposed to a subscription-based service?

The reason I would prefer a service like this over a therapist in my own town is because I am much more comfortable with a private texting/message/emailing platform rather than a face-to-face. I did some sessions in my early teens at my mother's insistence and it was not a pleasant experience. Just lots of silence and "I don't knows" from me at the time because it's extremely hard and embarrassing for me to open up to strangers about my thoughts and feelings.
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amandalouise
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 12:14 AM
  #2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twelve Forty Two View Post
Has anyone used online therapy such as Talk Space, Breakthrough, Better Help, etc.?

I have used the Better Help free trial offer in the past (and I see that they are a sponsor to this forum), but $200/month is a non-starter for me.

Are there any reputable sites that offer pay as you go (such as a one-time session or maybe pay for a week of unlimited access, etc.) as opposed to a subscription-based service?

The reason I would prefer a service like this over a therapist in my own town is because I am much more comfortable with a private texting/message/emailing platform rather than a face-to-face. I did some sessions in my early teens at my mother's insistence and it was not a pleasant experience. Just lots of silence and "I don't knows" from me at the time because it's extremely hard and embarrassing for me to open up to strangers about my thoughts and feelings.
with out naming any specific sites because this site does not allow us to promote other websites and services for the express purpose of sending members to them....

what I can say is that I have tried many and have been employed by many. most are not what they profess to be. you wont know for sure whether the person you are emailing is truly a treatment provider or the one that they profess to be. you wont know for sure that they have the credentials that they say they have....

in short on the internet anyone can be anyone that they want to be and say they are this that and the other thing with this that and the other credentials regardless of careers, schooling, heck look at psych central... do you really know who you are talking with here, whether they actually have the problems, careers, schooling, life style that is posted about... no of course not right, its impossible unless you actually see each other in real life off the computer/ real time...

many places also are changing to less employees and more robo caller type online therapy where you type in to your hearts content and the computer automatically sends back to you things based on key words and phrases that you have typed...

many online therapy actually have their employees follow a manual. match key words and phrases then the manual tells the employees what to answer back but place the answer in their own words...

online therapy you dont get the personal touches like actual facial / body language, you dont get the real concern and caring that building a therapeutic relationship by actually sitting with a therapist face to face, and vice versa the online therapist has no idea if what you are typing to them is for real or not....

example one time I told a therapist online that I was an 80 year old man with sexual issues. they didnt know any different and actually tried to get me to take the little blue pill for this kind of dysfunction lol another time I told a theraist I was a 16 year old suicidal teen, did they know the difference no, they just typed back to me about how my best years were ahead of me...

my point is though some people have found online therapy helpful I did not and do not. I find it very much lacking in many areas that actually seeing a therapist in person does, especially in the area of honesty, caring and really wanting to help.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 12:40 AM
  #3
I'm sorry I can't be much help, I used BetterHelp for one week when I was in a bad place and did not have access to my T or any other mental health services. I canceled after that one week because I was feeling better and even with a half-off student discount, it was still $30/week which I cannot afford. Plus the quality/level of care I was getting on BetterHelp was not worth $30/week to me. I hope you are able to find something that works for you

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LonesomeTonight
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 07:28 AM
  #4
I haven't used any online therapy sites, so can't help you there. But how long has it been since you tried face to face? It could be that therapist was a bad fit for you. And it might be helpful to you in general to learn to trust and feel comfortable working with someone face to face. Even just decide to try it for a few sessions (the first session is always awkward) and see how it goes. Try to find a T who allows email, because then you might be able to express some of your thoughts over email at first. Or you could try something like not facing the therapist (I know some posters on here don't look at them at all). Just a thought...
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 08:49 AM
  #5
Yes, and I was very disappointed. My therapist recommended one that was run my province wide. I just never had a good feeling about it and was immensely frustrated with the 'therapist' assigned to me. It seemed that she lacked real world experience. I felt I knew far more about the subject (it was CBT based) and got the sense she was merely regurgitating everything she said to me straight from a script.

So I did some research on the program. It turned out that she was not a 'therapist' at all. Now this is a point of contention for me. The term 'therapist' to me connotes a professional - in particular a psychologist with a full fledged degree and credentials. I would refer to others as counselors and so on. To discover then this program was run by the local University and that I was nothing more than a school project for a social work student kind of made me blow a gasket.
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