Have You Ever Seen Such A Beautiful Night? @fallendawn - Tumblr Blog

my favs 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏻

The therapist behind @therapyden posted a viral TikTok listing the reasons why BetterHelp shortchanges professional therapists and clients

I’m loathe to link to the Daily Dot, but this article (and the TikTok content) gives a good overview of why BetterHelp is a hot mess in so many ways.

I used the service for a while myself, and during that, saw three different “therapists.” The first therapist seemed to think that therapy meant just having a chat an allowing me to vent, which was largely unhelpful.

She was a Christian, but kept bringing that up, which also irked me because I’d rather not have religion part of my therapy goals. She wasn’t overly pushy, but it did bother me when she said, “As a therapist I have to say that this witchcraft stuff is your choice, but as a Christian I don’t approve.”

I cancelled and requested a new person after that.The second therapist seemed alright at first, but would regularly go on tangents about politics and her own life. I cancelled and requested a new therapist after a disturbing incident where she did the entire session (on cam, as usual) while loudly and angrily doing dishes in her kitchen.

In both of those cases, it felt like these people thought “therapist” means “online friend” or something, and never seemed to have real treatment plans or much to offer.

The third therapist I saw via BetterHelp was just for a single session. Despite consistently telling them, “I would prefer a non-religious therapist,” I was matched with someone who incessantly quoted the Bible. She kept repeatedly asking me if I was a “Bible believer” or had “accepted Jesus.” She also praised me to not standing up for myself, weirdly. She said it was best to let my husband take the lead because submission is a good quality or something like that.

It was ridiculous, and at that point I requested a full refund for that month. Around that time, I learned that BetterHelp doesn’t actually vet their “therapists.” In fact, scrolling their list of offerings, I came across “therapists” with such dubious credentials as graduating from Liberty University with a degree in “marriage” and specializing in “maladaptive sexual behaviors.”

I had to call their offices to get the refund. I’ll be honest; I wasn’t exactly polite during that call, and essentially said, “What you are doing is sick - some people do actually need help, y’know. You’ve wasted my time and money.”

If you want online therapy, I recommend looking for therapists who are semi-local and offer online sessions. Many do these days, and it’s much better than rolling the dice with BetterHelp. That and, y’know, they won’t sell your data.