that will actually respond
Hard no. These companies that are hucking their platforms as a "solution" to traditional therapy are doing some wildly unethical shit. Here are a few points:
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Unlicenced tech bros just and managers just thumbing through HIPAA protected records and even therapist notes (these are the notes that are not for anyone but the therapist).
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Client communications from the corporate entity that reveals patient names to other patients and the public.
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Non compliant credentialing where they've put unlicenced people into therapist roles.
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Severely underpaying therapists and giving them production quotas.
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Assigning clients to new therapists without notification or consent.
There's plenty of other damning issues, and it's all of these virtual only, nation wide, "startup", app based companies. Talk Space and Better Help are the big names everyone knows, but they've all become an Uber/Tesla for mental health - taking advantage of loopholes in regulations because they're a "tech" company.
Your best bet for mental healthcare is to go to psychologytoday.com and search for a therapist in your area. Most, if not all therapists can do video now days, chat/text isn't billable in many jurisdictions so you'd have to do some research on that (might be considered life coaching at that point).
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If you have access to a nearby university that offers psychology degrees, see if they have community counseling available. This is where freshly graduated masters and PhD students can engage in basic therapy, guided and monitored by a fully credentialed mentor. This lets them log the necessary hours needed towards a license to practice, and lets people short on money get pretty cheap basic psychological assistance to help them through rough patches. If money is an issue then this might be the way to go. As Karen said, after COVID most therapists offer online chat just because it opens up access to so many more people. Good luck in finding the help you need. And if you just need someone to talk to, plenty of people will have their DMs open for you on request, me included.
I did the community therapy thing through my local college. They offer sliding scale and I ended up only having to pay like $10 per session. Really great experience and ended up with a new diagnosis that I think does fit me better; at least med wise
As others said, look for a local. Where I am there's a lot of Mental Health charities that do subsidised counselling. The waitlist is about 2 months unfortunately but it'll only cost me £15-20 per session. I've heard positive things about the quality of their service. Depends where you're based, but for me that organisation was MIND.
sorry i didnt respond yesterday i appreciate everyones advice i was more looking for a crisis line but eventually got through i love you all
