May 27, 2025 • 62 mins
What happens when therapy becomes just another tech startup looking to maximize profits? In our deep dive into BetterHelp, we uncover the troubling reality behind the polished marketing of America's largest online therapy platform.
Behind those ubiquitous podcast advertisements lies a business model that's crushing therapists while potentially harming the very clients it claims to help. We break down exactly how the platform's payment structure forces therapists to maintain unsustainable caseloads – as many as 75 clients per therapist – while paying them a fraction of what clients are charged. When therapists inevitably burn out and leave the platform, clients (some dealing with abandonment issues) are simply reassigned without warning or closure.
The questionable practices don't end there. From the FTC's $7.8 million fine for selling sensitive client data to Facebook and Snapchat, to a system that penalizes therapists for writing thorough responses to client messages, the platform seems designed to extract maximum profit while providing minimal support. As former BetterHelp therapists ourselves, we share firsthand experiences with the platform's troubling approach to mental healthcare.
Don't settle for exploitative therapy. We discuss better alternatives for both affordable and online therapy options, including insurance-covered teletherapy and therapists who offer sliding scale payments. Your mental health journey deserves ethical, sustainable care from properly compensated professionals who have the time and resources to truly help you heal.
Have you had experiences with BetterHelp or similar platforms? Share your story with us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com and join our conversation about creating a more ethical mental health ecosystem.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi and welcome to Toxic Cooking Show, where we
break down toxic people to theirsimplest ingredients.
I'm your host, christopherPatchett LCSW.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And I'm Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
First off, I want to start off with a correction from
last week.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Ooh, okay.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
One of the things that I had said was that my
profile was on a Christianwebsite and I said it was
faithcom.
It was actually faithmindcom.
It was actually faith mindcom.
After the show, lindsey and I Iwas trying to show her the the
profile on faith mindcom and soat first we were looking up
(00:58):
faithcom, use my name.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We couldn't find it and yeah, I was ready to call
you a liar, yeah yeah, and thenI finally found it on
faithmindcom.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
so that's the correction from last week.
And to start off this week, weare going to also put in a
little note that all opinionsare that of Lindsay's and myself
.
We're going to use the wordallegedly a lot of times, just
because of the fact that thepeople that we are going to be
talking about are very, very,very well known to send cease
(01:39):
and desist letters If their nameis not used in proper terms or
whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm still telling you this is our ticket to stardom
Us.
A tiny little podcast thatnobody listens to takes on
better help and wins in alawsuit.
I mean, I say this as somebodywho doesn't live in the US, so
that's on you to do all of thatstuff.
But hey, if it worked out to doall of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But like hey, if it worked out.
I'm now picturing our EP alldressed up in, like you know, a
lawyer suit and everything likethat.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, she would be such a good representative in
court for us.
How could they say no?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
She's scratching her ear and sniffing her foot.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I know that's what she was doing.
I was like really Molly rightnow looking very professional
over there.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So, yes, considering the fact that BetterHelp has
lawyers of like ten hundredmillion dollars and we have a
dog who is scratching her earand sniffing her foot, lindsay
and I really don't want to godown the course of law.
No.
So, with that being said, lastweek we talked about BetterHelp,
(02:57):
the foundings of BetterHelp.
We also talked about theiradvertisement.
We talked about a lot of theproblems that have happened
(03:20):
until 2017 that they werefounded by the FTC to sell data
of their clients to Facebook, toSnapchat, and giving all these
tech companies opportunities tosell you products for anxiety
(03:41):
and depression and things likethat when you're trying to get
therapy.
Also, we had talked aboutalleged unfair practices working
with CareGrade, and wheneversomebody was looking up for a
therapist, that they would bedirected to CareGrade and then,
(04:02):
through CareGrade, they would bedirected to BetterHelprade and
then, through CareGrade, theywould be directed to BetterHelp,
and then BetterHelp wouldallegedly show that this person
was booked up.
And why don't you try one ofour therapists?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So a really good base of good practices.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, yeah.
This week we're going to talkabout the problems that it's
causing for therapists and alsofor the clients themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
We're going to start with the therapist and one of
the biggest problems isadvertising.
So, as we kind of talked aboutwhere BetterHelp had for one
month just for podcast, wasdoing an advertisement of $8
million for just one month,which is, I mean, it's
(04:50):
astounding.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But then I also think about how many ads even I have
come across.
Like I don't get American adsand podcasts because I'm not in
the U S, but like watchingYouTube videos or other things.
I see so many better helpadvertisements.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah and, and see so many better help
advertisements yeah, yeah, and,and the thing is, is okay.
So for a therapist, myadvertising budget is about $50
a month, so 8 million versus $50.
Guess who's going to be on thefirst 20 pages of Google?
Yeah, it's not you, yeah it's.
(05:32):
It's not going to be me bymyself, is it's uh going to be?
Yeah, better help.
Basically they're, they're in.
In my opinion, they are justkind of coming in and kicking
down the door for therapists andjust basically trying to
monopolize the entire therapyindustry.
(05:53):
This is also me speaking as aprevious therapist of BetterHelp
.
So again, these are myexperiences that I had with
better help and I also have seenon better help.
We had a therapist page talkingabout like different things of
(06:17):
better help itself and how toimprove it and things like that.
I see a lot of people also havethe same thing and also I'm
seeing, unfortunately, that it'snot getting any better.
To start off, let's talk aboutlike their pay for the therapist
and their pay scale is kind ofa weird scale.
(06:40):
It's you're getting paid 30 perhour.
That's per hour, not persession.
And how long is the session?
session is anywhere from a halfan hour to 45 minutes okay and
and also on top of that, that is, if the client shows up
(07:01):
perfectly on time and you havethat 45 minute session and you
close out at 45 minutes on thedot, you are getting paid $23
and 50 cents for that onesession.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And that's before, of course, taxes and other things,
and I'm a is there a fee thatthey take on top of that?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Just so.
For instance, if you workthrough Upwork, you're you get
paid by whatever agreement youhave with the client that you're
working for, but Upwork thentakes a percentage of that.
No so so you see that you'relike oh, I would have earned
like I.
You know, I put it in.
I'm like I want to earn $25 anhour.
(07:49):
And they're like cool, you gotpaid $25 now, but ha ha, we took
10% of it, so you didn't get 25an hour.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, so basically, and we'll we'll talk about this
in a second but the clientthemselves is paying anywhere
from $75 to $90 per session.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Wait, wait, hold on.
I mean I understand that, likethere's, there's going to be
overhead, of course, when youhave a company and then you're
paying people to do that work.
I mean I've worked liketeaching for companies before,
so I understand that, but threetimes as much is what they're
paying.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So that that is for the firstfive hours, though, and because
it's again, it's a really weirdpay scale, and I'll talk about
why I think they have the payscale like this.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And is it so?
Is that like per week, permonth?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So for the first five hours every week, you are
getting paid $30 an hour.
For the second five hours aweek, you're getting paid $35 an
hour.
For hours 10 to 15, $40, so onand so on, up until.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That is such bullshit .
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
What.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And again, this is my personal belief of why they're
doing this is that they arehoping for a lot of therapists
who are just trying to fill inan extra couple of slots here
and there.
And you know, generally youmight need.
You know, like, looking at myschedule, I have like maybe six
(09:24):
slots that might need to be, uh,that could be filled.
So even if I saw all six ofthem, I'd still be under that
five hours because, again,that's 45 minutes per session
and for six people, that three,four and a half hours.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh, my God.
So, it is such a scam, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it is kind of so.
Yeah, I mean, you have clientor you have therapists like that
who are just trying to fill ina couple of extra slots, Just as
you were kind of saying thatfor that session I would be
getting $23 and 50 cents perhour.
Meanwhile, better help is gain$75.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So they're getting the remaining $50 and $50, 50,
$51 and 50 cents and again youstill have to pay taxes on yours
.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
like that, none of has been taken out because,
right, you're a freelancer,right, uh, so one of the
problems is said okay, so 23, 23, yeah, three dollars per per
hour.
If you were to do the wholebetter help and just do 40 hours
of better help, then as a whole, because of that tier, you
(10:53):
could make up to $2,250 permonth or per week.
I'm sorry or per week, I'm sorry, okay, I was about to be like
whoa $2,250 per week and that istaking on an absolute full
caseload that every client comesin perfectly on time and you
(11:17):
finish on time.
So again you kind of thinkabout the fact that it's only 45
minute sessions that you nowhave to do.
You have to see at minimum 50clients to be able to do a 40
hour work week.
And yeah, yeah.
(11:38):
So I mean, with that type ofkid, with with that type of tier
, like I said, you're getting$2,250 a week, which sounds
great until you remember taxes.
And so as a therapist generally, I will be putting in about
(11:59):
like 35% in the savings fortaxes, percent in the in the
savings for taxes.
So you kind of figure that, okay, that's about fifteen hundred
dollars a week.
So, okay, if you are workingabsolute full-time, all of your
clients show up, then you knowyou're going, you know you're
(12:21):
going to get $6,000 a monthafter taxes, which is not too
bad.
But again, now you're having todo a full caseload and probably
even going to have to do morebecause of the fact that people
call out, people cancel at thelast minute, people don't show
up.
And if they don't show up, orif they do cancel at the last
(12:43):
minute, you only make $7.50 forthat entire session.
That was lost.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
What the fuck.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
But now do they still pay the full amount?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
See now that I don't know, I don't know if they give
them like that opportunity, I Imy personal opinion, I wouldn't
think that a tech giant likethem would be like, oh no
problem, we'll pay the 750 foryou yeah, from everything you've
told me so far, I wouldn't besurprised if they still pay the
(13:19):
full amount for a missed thingand that money just kind of
magically disappears in theether.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We don't know, of course, but it wouldn't surprise
me right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So the other way that that therapist uh can get paid
is by, uh, the messages back andforth.
So, okay, if, if a client has aquestion, like throughout the
week, and they write to thetherapist saying, hey, you know,
I need help on this, orwhatever, and you write a
(13:54):
message back, you do get alittle bit of money for reading,
you do get a little bit ofmoney for sending a message back
to the client.
However, they have like a verykind of stingy way of doing it,
at least in my experience, whereit was, if you wrote back more
(14:14):
than what the client wrote toyou, that you would only get
paid for a certain amount.
So what the fuck?
I I think it was like twice asmuch as as what the client wrote
to you, anything.
After twice as much as that,then they just say well, it's on
your own.
Client might, might ask me,since I I work a lot with with
(14:37):
trauma, I might.
I do a lot of work with, uh,cognitive processing therapy,
which a lot of it is.
It's homework that I send homewith the person and you know
I'll ask them if they need helpwith something.
You know, please feel free toask me Because I want to make
sure that they're gettingeverything right and that when I
(15:02):
see them next week that we canjust kind of go with the flow
and continue moving forward.
So a client might send mesomething like hey, I'm not too
sure about like what stuckpoints are.
Okay, that's one sentence.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I would hope your answer would be more than
twice the length of that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, so like if I'm trying to tell them
exactly what his tuck point is.
I'm writing like a pretty mucha novel, you know like.
So after the second sentence,at least in my experience,
anything after that you're notgetting paid for.
So there is that.
And then kind of with thiswhole thing of like you know
(15:44):
like, having to take on such alarge caseload, that 50 plus
people, just to make sure thatyou make that that 40, 40 hours,
I mean, you're basically havingto work 45, 50 hours to make
sure that you do come acrossthat cross that, and with that
(16:09):
amount of people, again you'reprobably gonna need to have a
caseload of like 75 people, youknow, to make sure that you fill
in, and that's going to createburnout Very, very quick.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Oh yeah, I mean at that rate, you know, because
it's one thing to say and we allrun into this as freelancers.
You hit those moments whereyou're like, oh, I've got too
many projects, but it's a shortterm thing.
You're like all right, cool, I,you know you power through it,
you get it done.
But like, very quickly, itstarts to weigh on you and
(16:38):
quality goes down.
Yeah, Like across it, no one'simmune to it.
Like if you were workingovertime that much in any job,
the quality will go down right,right, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It's impossible to be able to kind of be fully there
again when you're working like10 hour days, you know, six days
a week, like you know.
And another thing is, is thatso, as a freelancer, like one of
the beautiful things aboutbeing a freelancer is you're
(17:15):
your own balls, you're able to,you're able to make sure, or
you're able to work your ownhours, you're able to take on
the, the, the, the clients thatyou want to, you're able to.
That's, that's the beauty offreelancing you are your own
boss.
Obviously, even as a freelancer, you're signing a contract for
(17:37):
you know, like I'm gonna havethis done by this amount of time
, that's.
But but outside of like justthe, the contract, the end date
of when this can be done, you'reyou're able to set your own
hours, you're able to uh setyour own way of doing things.
The end game better be done, orelse you know they can say that
(17:58):
, well, breach of contract.
You know, good luck, uh,getting the money out of that.
So so you know, like one of thethings is that you kind of have
to ask yourself, as a personworking for BetterHelp, are you
really a freelancer?
Because there's a lot of thingswhere they would have that you
(18:18):
had a message back.
You know a person with acertain amount of time that you
had 24 hours.
You know a person with acertain amount of time that you
had 24 hours.
So that means that if youwanted to work four days a week
and work, let's say, thursday,friday, saturday, sunday, and
somebody messages you on Monday,Really so you couldn't even set
(18:42):
a time.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
be like I am not available these days and so,
like this is my time off.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They told you that, other than weekends, you had a
message back within 24 hours.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
No, that the whole point of freelancing is I can do
my work at 2am.
Yeah, I mean I guess you couldif you really want to to.
But like, the whole idea isthat you set your schedule yeah,
exactly no, no that's the thing, like so.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So, in that respect, you're, you're already being
told when you're, when you haveto work, and and what your work
requirements are, are to be,which you know, it's, it's.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's kind of towing the line of what is a
freelancer, and I know thatcompanies like Uber have gotten
into hot water over this, likein the past.
I'm sure that there are manymore battles to come over gig
slash freelancers, but there isa difference and when you start
(19:45):
setting these requirements,you're you're headed dangerously
close to that.
Oh, this is an employee, uh,yeah yeah, and so there's there.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
There's that whole thing where and then also on top
of that, like, if you do notsend out a message, then what
they're able to do is they'reable to say, okay, you get no
new clients until you do thesethings.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And they know they can, because there will always
be new desperate people, newtherapists coming to the
platform.
It's like all these onlineworkplaces like Preply, italki
all of them they're shit.
They treat their teachers likeshit because they know they know
that there will be new peoplecoming.
(20:34):
There were always people whowere desperate, like I need to
make money.
Therapists who were like I justgraduated and I'm looking at
the amount of money that I oweand like I need clients, I need
hours, I need something, andthey will turn to a place like
this because that's how you getit.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, exactly, and.
And the other big this was,this was, this was.
It sounds petty, but this was ahuge thing for me is that I
(21:17):
would have when, when I wasworking with lot better, they
would have their whole thingworked in, where if somebody
from BetterHelp scheduled on toBetterHelp, then it would go to
my Google calendar and thatwould shut off my Google
calendar was also connected tothe insurance company, so then
(21:41):
that would be blocked off forthe insurance company.
However, it didn't work inreverse, so like if an insurance
company client were to book anappointment at such and such
time, then it wouldn't be takingoff the better help, and then,
you know, if somebody happenedto try booking for the same time
(22:03):
, then I'd have to let them knowlike hey, look, I already had,
like you know, this done or thistime filled.
Unfortunately, I can't see youbecause I'm not.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
That is such an odd quirk to have in your system.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It's really odd.
I don't think you're beingpetty about that, it's I support
your hatred for this.
Because I feel like there is away to not have that happen,
which then says that it is achoice to keep it like that yeah
is what that implies to me yeah, and and and you know, as far
(22:46):
as, like you know, like their,their support system.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I'm not going to go too deep into it because I, I
you know again, I don't want tobreak any confidentiality.
However, I will say this isthat I have gone through times
where I did go through a timewhere I had a client that was
inappropriate for better help,and so better help they do have
(23:12):
in their agreement that this isnot meant for like anything
intense.
This is not meant for anythinglike you know, like serious or
like severe or like needed rightnow, that this is basically
they're advertising themselvesor they have in legal terms,
(23:33):
basically this for like slightdepression or slight anxiety.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
you know, like very right, but if I'm in a crisis on
a good day, I don't read theterms and agreements right.
So, like if I'm in a crisis,I'm definitely not going to read
that right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
So I I had a client that was linked to me and was
completely inappropriate forBetterHelp services as a whole,
and this person ended upthreatening to find me and kill
me.
Oh okay, oh okay.
(24:16):
And so I let BetterHelp knowthat.
Hey look, you know this iswhat's going on.
You know this person isinappropriate for this platform
as a whole and this person isthreatening to find me and kill
me.
The response that I got waswell, let this person know that
they're inappropriate forBetterHelp.
Was well, let this person knowthat they're inappropriate for
better help, and then, once yousend them that, you let us know
(24:40):
and then we'll take them off theplatform.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So we're just going to ignore the threat of murder.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
By someone who may not be in a really good mental
state.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Cool, cool, cool and we're're gonna ignore it.
And then also the person whowas threatened for murder.
Um, I want you to go back andand let them know that engage
with them again engage with themagain.
Let them know that, hey, you'renot gonna get your way period,
and I'm recommending, to betterhelp, that they take you off the
(25:17):
platform altogether.
So yeah, okay that that that isthe support that I I had gotten
from better help support.
Wow, I.
I'm gonna close off problemswith therapists with one last
thing is we talked about thislast week where the fcc find
(25:39):
better help 7.8 million dollarsand it was because of them
selling off information tofacebook, instagram, snapchat
and all that one of the thingsin that that group that I was
telling you about earlier, whereyou know we talk about better
help and everything.
A lot of therapists wereactually really worried about
(25:59):
our license.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So that is something to kind of keep in mind.
Is you know at least for me, ifa company is being that shady
with again A company is beingthat shady with again not not
having a licensed therapist tobegin with until like 2017, that
they were selling offinformation, that they whether
it was knowledge or not thatthey were working with other
(26:31):
shady companies to have peoplere redirected to better help,
and the fact that again, whetherthey know this or not, I think
they know this Things likefaithmindorg or com redirecting
(26:56):
people to better help.
To me, that shows that theydon't care about the therapist,
they don't care about theclients.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
No, to me, even just that, like all of those things,
even like one or two of themcombined, is enough to say it's
like you were here for the moneyis the impression that you're
giving, and then, when you justkeep stacking it up, it's like I
don't see how you can argueotherwise, when everything you
have done up until this pointshows this oh god.
(27:43):
So this leads me to the secondhalf of this.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Uh show, uh the problems for clients because we
haven't had enough problemsalready, right, right and, and
you know, and here's the thingis that these are the people
that that I really feel for forthe most.
Um, yeah, I, I do feel that, asa therapist, like you know,
like um, we're really kind ofgetting screwed.
But you know, the the mostimportant person here is the
(28:08):
people who are asking for help.
So, starting off, you know, asI was kind of saying, basically
with the clients, they'regetting a subscription base, so
they're paying $75 to $90 persession and they're able to see
(28:31):
the therapist, let's say, fourtimes a month, the therapist,
let's say four times a month,and that they have unlimited
access to, you know, likewriting to the therapists and
things like that.
The problem with that is that,from what I understand and from
what I've heard from clients, isthat it is either use it or
(28:53):
lose.
It.
Is that it is either use it orlose it?
No, but what if you're going onvacation?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Use it or lose it.
What if you're just in a periodwhere, like, maybe you don't
need to be coming as much?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So okay the vacation, Okay the vacation.
And I don't know factually ifit is use it or lose it, or if
they're able to say toBetterHelp like, hey, I'm going
on vacation, Can we move it outa week or something like that.
But I do know, like if theywere like, let's say, I'm
(29:33):
working with a client and we'vepretty much taken care of like
their depression or anythinglike that, and they want to kind
of go biweekly.
There are subscriptions thatare biweekly Okay, there are
subscriptions as like once amonth.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
But you still have to set that ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, you have to set that ahead of time, so but yeah
, I mean, mean you know againthat that's.
They do have things where it'slike you know and try the first
month for free and things likethat, which that kind of gets
back to uh guess where thatmoney is coming from although
(30:14):
it's better they're.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They're teaching websites that the student pays
for the first lesson but theteacher doesn't get any money.
Yeah, the first lesson is freeyeah, fuck that right, right.
It's like no, even if it's,it's a free for everybody.
(30:35):
The problem is is that thenpeople are like, oh well, it's
free, so like I can just kind ofbop around a little bit and try
out some people.
It's like, yeah, but you've nowtaken up some of these valuable
time and they didn't get paidfor.
That did you ever think about?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
that, oh god, so.
So what?
One of the things, like youknow, due to the fact of
therapists who you know, we'renot getting a lot of money.
You know, it's basically liketrying to make ends meet.
And so, if you're trying tomake ends meet, guess how much
(31:10):
money you have for learningdifferent types of therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, no, yeah a lot of zeros a lot, yeah, yeah, a
lot of zero, nothing in frontand and here's the problem, like
is that learning differentmodes of therapy is not cheap at
all, not even in the least.
(31:38):
Which I always found funny ishow, as a whole, like social
workers are one of the lowestpaid master's degree like jobs,
but yet everything is for themto keep their license, for them
to uh move forward is the mostexpensive things on the world.
(32:02):
So so like different types ofuh therapy, like I mean, you're,
you're paying like thousands ofdollars, so like for the
training emdr.
yeah, for the training, for thesupervision after the training
to be certified.
So for example, like as ofright now I am taking gotman
(32:25):
training for couple therapy, itis 700 for level one and two,
it's a thousand dollars forlevel three and then a thousand
dollars for uh to be registeredfor the supervision and then
supervision generally is about$200, $200, $250 per session
(32:49):
with supervision and usuallylike that type of training calls
for like 10 sessions.
So that's another $2,500 justfor the supervision.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So you're looking at like five to six K right there.
Okay, just to be certified inthis.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Just to be certified and that's just one type of
therapy.
Yeah, which?
Okay, that wouldn't be so badif all you needed was one type
of therapy.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But you don't.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
But you don't, because there are 8 billion
people on this planet right nowand everybody, you know we're
different, so we're going totake in things differently.
We're going to, you know, we'regoing to need, have different
(33:44):
needs and things like that.
So, like you know, before I getattacked by the therapist
community, things like the veryfirst thing that I had ever
learned was cognitive behavioraltherapy is to look at your
thoughts and see if there arebetter ways of looking at it.
(34:21):
And if you're talking aboutsomebody who is sexually
assaulted, you can't just say,well, you know, like, let's go
back to that this way.
You know, let's go back to thatand, you know, think a little
bit different.
Maybe the guy just didn'trealize that, you know, you
weren't his.
Oh my god no, like, yeah, no solike I mean, there there is like
(34:50):
um, cognitive processingtherapy, which is a branch of
kind of behavioral therapytherapy that is more appropriate
for, like trauma.
It was actually CBT that wasdesigned for trauma, which is
looking at the beliefs that wereformed from trauma rather than
looking at the thoughts of whatcould have been.
(35:10):
You know so.
So you know you do need, as atherapist, you do need multiple
types of therapy in order to beable to provide the best you
know help for for your clients.
So one of the big things is isthat you're now having
therapists who are completelyunapparent or unprepared.
You're having therapists whohas that one mode of training,
(35:33):
if any mode of training, andthey're just kind of taking a
shot in the dark and there's nopossibility for them to continue
getting trained.
Now.
Better help, I will say they dohave, like you know, like these
little training modules whichyou know like, think of it this
way, like we, we've all had thisin college.
(35:56):
You know, especially nowadays,where it was.
Just like you know, like the,the training modules, like you
know, like the, the professorwho was too lazy to you know,
really take or teach class andand just threw up, like you know
, you, you go through these 14modules one per week and then
you turned in an assignment andthen you got a grade.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, the ones where it's like learn how to do this
amazing thing in just threehours.
It's like no, there are thingsyou can learn to do in three
hours, Like there are definitelycourses and certificates that
it's short enough and sweetenough that you can just like go
through it and done.
But I think a lot of this stuffthere's a lot of theory that
(36:39):
you need to absorb.
There's a lot of examples thatyou need to absorb.
There may be some questionsthat you work through so that
you understand how this fits andhow it doesn't.
That's not a A little onlinequiz thing that you do.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, there's a time and place for those, and this is
not it.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Now I'm just imagining a whole bunch of
therapists who have basicallydone like the free version of
Coursera.
That's what they're working offof, and that is a terrifying
image, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah, and the thing is, you, you know, like
rightfully so, uh, just becauseyou took a better help, uh, cbt
course doesn't mean you're, youknow, certified no no, you might
have basic understanding of ituh, at least that's what I would
imagine, but you know, as faras actually fully understanding
(37:37):
it, no, yeah, and I mean, whenit comes to my mental health,
like I, I this is one of thosethings where cheapness is not
going to be better no, no, thereare.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
there are a lot of things in life where the
cheapest option is not only notthe best option, it's kind of
one of the worst options,because in this case you're
getting something that's like,oh, it's kind of that thing, but
it's actually not.
So now you're just wasting yourmoney because you're
potentially getting bad advicethat's not even accurate.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
You think you're getting X, y, z and you're
getting something worse right,right it's uh, I love this for
all of us, that this, this isdefinitely how we convince
people to get therapy you know,we we kind of talked about
earlier about like you know,like um, for the problems with
(38:41):
therapists is that they'rehaving a caseload of like 60, 70
people, uh, just to make endsmeet.
And you know again, if you area therapist for for trying to
trying to get your the maxincome from better help, and
you're working 40 hours, you cando 45 hours, you can do 50, 80
(39:05):
hours a week, um, but just to doeven 40 hours, that's yeah, way
too much.
But if you're having like 75clients you know in your
caseload, let me ask you like,you know, like, if over a month
you know and I'm being generoushere If over a month you met 75
(39:27):
different people, how many ofthose stories are you actually
going to remember?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Zero.
I mean, I can tell you, evenfrom my experience as a
freelancer like because of theway I work, where I have, like
different clients who aresending me different projects
for translation.
They all have different styleguides and you will hit that
moment where sometimes, eventhough it's a project you've
been working on for years, youjust like you're like what am I
(39:55):
capitalizing here?
Like, what set of punctuationrules do we follow here?
Because it's the fourth timetoday that I've had to switch
mentally between, like, what arewe using what you know?
What rules are we followinghere?
Versus not following there?
Because there are there are allsorts of like weird
capitalization and grammar rulesthat apply to video games that
(40:16):
don't apply to other things, andyeah, that's how mistakes get
made.
And then the project managerwrites you back and it's like
what happened?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
you're like, you see, you know, one of the things I I
remember, like in in learningabout therapy itself, is that
one of the best things that youcan do to really form a rapport
with somebody is, you know,being able to recall something
(40:46):
back from like last session.
You know, oh, I remember lastsession that you were talking
about such and such like.
It gives it, you know, it givesthat person like and and
rightfully so Like if, if youknow.
My therapist is like oh yeah,you know, I remember you were
talking that person, andrightfully so.
My therapist is like oh yeah, Iremember you were talking about
so-and-so, and especially ifyou call them out by name or
something like that, it givesthat okay, I feel a closer
(41:10):
connection, I can be able to saythings, as opposed to if you're
going through 75 clients in aweek.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
You don't remember that, you don't remember their
names yeah, you know, and I meanlike.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
So there are times where, like you know, like, uh,
that I am meeting with theclient for the second time and
especially, you know, I mighthave to look at, you know like,
I'll look at their notes, theirnotes from the previous week,
just to kind of jog my memory.
Oh, okay, I remember who I'mgoing to be working with here in
a second.
(41:44):
If you're already working 40hours just seeing clients,
chances are you're probably notgoing to be taking notes, you're
probably not going to havesomething there, because from my
experience you didn't have toturn in notes.
You know you could write notes,but if you're working with the
(42:04):
client again, if you're alreadydoing 40 hours, you're not going
to put another 10 hours of, youknow, like, writing out notes
no, because that's unpaid workat that point right and so so
it's.
You're kind of taking away thatpersonal touch from the
therapist because they're youknow they're going through so
(42:25):
many people and also, if atherapist is going through you
know 10 hours a day, just to youknow be able to make sure that
they do hit that 40 hours, toyou know be able to make sure
that they do hit that 40 hoursand they're working 50 hours,
monday through Fridays, 10 hoursa day, and you are client
(42:46):
number Cause you got to figurewith 10 hours a day like 10
actual hours.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
My God you're actually seeing 15 clients.
Yeah, or or.
I'm sorry about 12.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
seeing 15 clients, yeah, or or.
I'm sorry about 12 or 13clients.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Even still like if you're just that one at the very
end.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Even somewhere in the middle, Cause by that point the
therapist is like I need to eat, Like I need to move, but I'm
sitting like stuck sitting heretalking to you who I?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
really don't care about at the moment.
Well, you know, okay, if it wasjust peeing and pooping, or
well, not pooping, but if it wasjust having to get up and go to
the bathroom real quick, youknow, like I've done that,
excuse myself, like I'm reallysorry, I have to go.
Excuse myself Like I'm reallysorry, I have to go to Beth.
Yeah, that's one thing, butafter like six, seven, if your
client number eight, nine, 10,11, 12, that therapist is
(43:47):
mentally drained.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
And is probably not going to give you their full
attention, and especially like,if you're talking about, like
you know, a possible crisis, orif you were talking about
something that had really hityou hard, you know, throughout
the week and your client, your,your therapist, is just there.
(44:11):
Oh my god, I cannot wait to go.
I'm so fucking done with thisshit.
You know like yeah, burnout isa thing.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Quality care right there.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, that is not exactly.
You're not going to get exactlythe most quality of care and
your therapist is not going tobe, you know, fully, there by
the end of the day.
Yeah, so this is going to causea lot of problems as far as,
like you know, there by the endof the day.
Yeah, so this is getting close.
A lot of problems as far as,like you know, trust in therapy
itself.
So I know like, uh, one of thethings I had seen from a client
(44:49):
or an ex-client who posted up ontiktok about how they went
through three differenttherapists within a matter of
two months and one of thereasons why they went to therapy
was for abandonment issue.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
And if you, if you have a therapist who is working
40, 50 hours a week, guess howquickly their, their burnout
rate is going.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, and if you're the newest client or if you're
kind of a weird time, you're theone that gets cut.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yeah, and and well, and on top of that, like again
you know therapists who are, youknow, working that amount of
time, they're going toeventually just say like, okay,
I can't deal with this shitanymore.
Yeah, I'm working, you know, 50hours a week and I'm barely
able to get by.
And they quit Better Help, andnow that person's moving on to
(45:46):
the next therapist.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
And I mean again if you're having therapists working
50 hours a week, well, theburnouts can happen pretty
quickly.
50 hours a week, well, theburnouts can happen pretty
quickly.
So you know again, you knowthis person who is going to
therapy for abandonment.
Not only you know was thisperson saying about how
(46:09):
therapists would leave and thatshe would have to get rematched.
She also talked about howtherapists would just cut, you
know, and they would just sayokay, it's eight o'clock.
You know what I can't doanymore and just like skip out
of the sessions.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's not good, but like yeah, that's what happens
when you're overworked.
Is at some point you crack andyou're like I can't Right, I
don't care.
At this point, Like, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You know like it's.
It's funny.
Um, I I saw on, you know likeagain being being on facebook,
like I, I'm in like a lot oftherapy therapist groups, uh,
and I saw somebody who said, uh,I'm experiencing or I think I'm
burnout.
I'm getting down to the pointwhere anytime that a client
(46:58):
calls out or misses anappointment, I feel excited.
And that's what burnout feelslike.
It's when you're actually like,oh my God, I just can't deal
with it.
It's just completely draining.
Yeah, you as a person, you'regoing to probably cut out,
you're probably going to leave,and now this person is left
(47:25):
without a therapist.
And you know, like I mean, ifthey're going through that, if
that's their first view oftherapy, it's.
You know therapy as a whole isis a hard thing.
And I tell a lot of people likeyou know, like that, I
congratulate a lot of people fortaking that first step, because
(47:47):
just asking for help is is hardas hell.
And if your first experience intherapy is somebody who is not
listening to you and who'scutting out all the time, you
know first impressions, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, it takes a lot for some people to get the
therapy and then that's what youmeet and it's like we'll see.
I knew all along that this wasbullshit.
Like why did I waste my moneycoming here and now you've lost
that person completely?
Now trying to ever get them togo back will be so much harder
(48:23):
because they got burned by this.
And it's different to theburnout versus somebody retiring
, because when it's retiring youknow you have like a little bit
of forewarning, like hey, I'mgoing to be leaving soon, so
let's kind of make a plan forwhere you're going to go and
what you're going to do.
And can I recommend you tosomebody else?
And this is just like rugpulled out from under your feet.
I'm gone.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Figure it out.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, and that that that was the thing was that this
person was saying with one oftheir therapists was that they
had a session with the therapistand then a couple of weeks
later, or like a couple of dayslater, they get a email from
better help saying, hey, yourtherapist just left, we're going
(49:08):
to rematch you with somebodyelse.
And it's just like and again,this person was going to therapy
for abandonment issues- yeah.
So so I mean, you're probablygoing to the worse in the
symptoms and you know anotherway that I feel that BetterHelp
(49:29):
is promoting symptoms is a lotof things kind of come down to
like codependency.
You know like um, uh, we talk alot about like um attachment
styles, and you know if you'retalking about like an anxious or
wait, wait, hold on.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Is avoidant anxious or anxious avoid?
Is that like a real thing?
Speaker 1 (49:51):
oh yeah, I mean there there's.
So there's secure, unsecure andanxious.
I'm just going to double check.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Sorry, this is a tangent, but like I see this
come up on the internet all thetime and I know that half of it
is not true, because this is theinternet we're talking about,
but I just wasn't sure whichhalf.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Secure, anxious, avoiding and disorganized.
Oh, I've never heard aboutdisorganized before so okay, so,
uh, so yeah, um, uh, I guessthat that can be unsecure as
well.
So you know and and that's kindof the thing is that you know,
(50:35):
with attachment styles, like youknow, like that's one of the
things is that if you have, youknow, like an anxious, you know
like attachment, somebody withanxious attachment is going to
constantly need you know thatbeing told that things are going
to be okay, that you're okay,being told that things are going
(50:58):
to be okay, that you're okay,which maybe at the beginning,
hearing that from your therapistis going to feel good, but you
know, over time, that'ssomething that we can work on,
so that way you're not needingthat all the time.
But also, like the other thingis is that you are having
somebody with 24, 24, sevenaccess to therapists.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, that's definitely going to help.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
They're.
They're getting right to thetherapist, and and again this
you know, the therapist has toprovide back within a certain
amount of time, Unless it's theweekend.
You're you're promotingcodependency and that's one of
the things is that we're tryingto work with people to get them
away from having to constantlyrely on somebody else.
(51:46):
Part of the whole thing is withtherapy is self-empowerment
being able to, you know, havethat person do something and and
feel like, holy shit, I can dothis.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
If you're giving access to that therapist and
with that expectation thatthey're going to respond back to
you right away, it's basicallyleaving the heroin addict in the
room with a bunch of heroin andsaying, okay, just stay away
from it and just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah, at some point they're going to cave.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah.
So, with all that being said,I'm going to take over this time
, for where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (52:33):
I mean, it makes it you're the one who's actually
experienced this, so I feel likeyou're maybe a little more
qualified.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
As far as therapy goes, I think that BetterHelp
was good in the fact that theydid introduce and that they did
make it available for onlinetherapy.
Today, there are a lot ofinsurance companies that will
pay for online therapy.
Today there are a lot ofinsurance companies that will
pay for online therapy.
There are a lot of EAPsemployee-assisted programs that
(53:08):
allows people to go online andget therapy.
The therapists are getting paida hell of a lot better.
They're not taking on like sucha large caseload.
The client is getting moreexperience therapy, so there are
sources of online therapy thatare way, way better than
(53:30):
BetterHelp.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
That's good to know.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
And you know this is one of those things where I
understand that that therapy isexpensive.
But again, as we kind of talkedabout before, there's a reason
for that, you know it's.
You know, when you're talkingabout your own mental health,
you don't want somebody who onlyknows one type of therapy, want
somebody who only knows onetype of therapy.
(53:57):
And again, you know, like, youknow, in my opinion, something
like CBT is not going to behelpful for somebody who's going
through trauma, because youknow you can't think in a more
you know, quote, unquoterealistic way of you know,
sexual assault, because whathappened is real to begin with.
(54:19):
You know, like, but there areways that you're able to look at
the beliefs that are formedfrom it.
You know, like, as far as trust, intimacy, self-esteem,
security and power control, youknow, and that's what cognitive
processing therapy kind of goesinto is looking at how we have
(54:41):
those things and how findingthat medium ground instead of
going from, rather than sittingthere and saying that nobody can
be trusted.
You know there's noone-size-fits-all, and again,
that gives the therapistopportunities to see different
or have different ways of goingthrough therapy and giving
(55:06):
different practices.
I think that you know,unfortunately.
You know, and if it reallycomes down to it, I know with
myself I have a couple spotsopen for low-income therapy.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
I know many people do .
I've seen this idea of asliding pay scale before, where
it's, like you know, withinreason.
I understand that some peopletruly may not have the budget
for what this is worth, and so,for you specifically, we can
work with this.
I think many people, manytherapists, would be open to
(55:42):
that yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
So I mean, you know, like I know, when I was going
through a lot and and didn'thave money, um, yeah, like I
have money now, uh, my mytherapist, uh, you know he
lowered his price down, uh a lotjust to be able to like
accommodate, um, and I do thesame thing for you know, like I
(56:07):
said, I have a couple slots, uh,for people with low income.
Uh, you know therapy and uh, soif you are looking for low
income therapy, you can go on topsychology today and you're
able to find, you know, like atherapist with a sliding scale.
(56:27):
Okay, so there are options outthere.
You know, if price is the bigthing, so, basically, where do
we go from here?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
is we already have all of the necessary things in
place?
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah, Okay, it's just being able to access them.
And again, talking to insurancecompany, talking to your job,
talking to looking up onpsychology, today there are
different ways of being able to,uh, access these resources.
And for therapists, um, youknow, I would say stay the fuck
(57:05):
away from better help.
And that's again, that's myopinion.
But yeah, my opinion is staythe fuck away from better help.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I support this.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
So, with all that being said, where would you put
this on our scale of toxicity?
Would you say that this is agreen potato?
Uh, where you can just scrapeoff the green and it's okay?
Uh, death cap mushroom, whereyou have a 50 50 shot of uh
getting killed?
Or would you say that this isan antifreeze?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I'm going to have to go with antifreeze because I
hate BetterHelp.
I had an idea that they werekind of slimy before from stuff
that you had said and stuff I'dkind of seen.
It also tends to be one ofthose things that like when you
see the same company pop up overand over and over and over and
over and over and over again andads over and over and over and
(58:00):
over and over and over and overagain and adds that to me is a
red flag that you're having toconstantly advertise all the
time, all these different peopleall over the place.
It's weird when it's a constantthing.
I also think that they get thisbecause they have made it
really clear, to my mind, thatthey only care about money.
I mean, see the fact that theysold people's private data to
(58:26):
social media companies there arelaws against this and the fact
that they got slapped with alittle fine.
That's the only thing that hasstopped them, but they did it.
Somebody approved that andsomebody else was.
Somebody had the idea, somebodyapproved it and they went
through with it and they didn'tseem to think that there was any
issue with that.
(58:48):
I desperately want to like thembecause I love the idea of
online therapy.
I love the idea of therapistsbeing able to work freelance and
, as you said, pick and chooseyour hours and how you want to
do things and work around yourexisting schedule.
As a fellow freelancer, I getit, but I feel like better help
is just like the worst ofeverything, like it's bad for
(59:09):
the patients.
They're more likely to get lowquality care while still paying
quite a bit of money.
It's bad for therapists becausethey're being pushed to work
way too much, which in turn, isthen bad for the patients.
And it's bad for therapy as awhole because it just cheapens
the whole experience and makespeople not take it seriously and
(59:33):
increases the likelihood thatpeople are going to have bad
experiences either patientshaving therapists who don't care
or therapists being like I haveall these patients and they
just keep canceling and I'mstressed and I'm overworked and
I'm out.
Like everyone loses withBetterHelp, except BetterHelp,
who takes all your money andspends it on ads.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
I will agree.
I will agree.
I think that the I was actuallythinking about this me of maybe
even downing it to jello withsprinkle antifreeze, just
because of the fact that betterhelp brought the ability of
therapy to come online.
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
This is true and that is a really important thing,
and I love this, that we have it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
But I think that 2020 would have done that too.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
That's true.
I think one way or another 2020, like the pandemic we would
have yeeted everything online.
I mean, we did for other stufftoo, because we had there was
all sorts of stuff like onlineclasses and stuff that we kind
of we were looking at, and thenthe pandemic people were like oh
no, let's just keep it this way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, and so, yeah, I'm going with
full-fledged antifreeze.
Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I think they deserve it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Yeah, I think they pretty much deserve it.
So if you have any thoughts orif you're a therapist yourself
and you have stories of betterhelp, let us know.
At toxic, at awesome lifeskills dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
However, if you are better help and you are one of
their lawyers, you don't need tocontact us.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Yes, yes, yes.
If you are a lawyer ofBetterHelp, you can contact us
on our other email ofgofuckyourself at fuckyoucom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
We need this email now.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Allegedly yeah.
You can follow us on Instagram,Blue Sky and Facebook, and
we're looking forward to seeingyou all next week.
Until then, I've been ChrisVerpatchit, LCSW.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
And I've been Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Bye, bye.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Bye.
Hi and welcome to Toxic Cooking Show, where we
break down toxic people to theirsimplest ingredients.
I'm your host, christopherPatchett LCSW.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And I'm Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
First off, I want to start off with a correction from
last week.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Ooh, okay.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
One of the things that I had said was that my
profile was on a Christianwebsite and I said it was
faithcom.
It was actually faithmindcom.
It was actually faith mindcom.
After the show, lindsey and I Iwas trying to show her the the
profile on faith mindcom and soat first we were looking up
(00:58):
faithcom, use my name.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
We couldn't find it and yeah, I was ready to call
you a liar, yeah yeah, and thenI finally found it on
faithmindcom.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
so that's the correction from last week.
And to start off this week, weare going to also put in a
little note that all opinionsare that of Lindsay's and myself
.
We're going to use the wordallegedly a lot of times, just
because of the fact that thepeople that we are going to be
talking about are very, very,very well known to send cease
(01:39):
and desist letters If their nameis not used in proper terms or
whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm still telling you this is our ticket to stardom
Us.
A tiny little podcast thatnobody listens to takes on
better help and wins in alawsuit.
I mean, I say this as somebodywho doesn't live in the US, so
that's on you to do all of thatstuff.
But hey, if it worked out to doall of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But like hey, if it worked out.
I'm now picturing our EP alldressed up in, like you know, a
lawyer suit and everything likethat.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, she would be such a good representative in
court for us.
How could they say no?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
She's scratching her ear and sniffing her foot.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I know that's what she was doing.
I was like really Molly rightnow looking very professional
over there.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So, yes, considering the fact that BetterHelp has
lawyers of like ten hundredmillion dollars and we have a
dog who is scratching her earand sniffing her foot, lindsay
and I really don't want to godown the course of law.
No.
So, with that being said, lastweek we talked about BetterHelp,
(02:57):
the foundings of BetterHelp.
We also talked about theiradvertisement.
We talked about a lot of theproblems that have happened
(03:20):
until 2017 that they werefounded by the FTC to sell data
of their clients to Facebook, toSnapchat, and giving all these
tech companies opportunities tosell you products for anxiety
(03:41):
and depression and things likethat when you're trying to get
therapy.
Also, we had talked aboutalleged unfair practices working
with CareGrade, and wheneversomebody was looking up for a
therapist, that they would bedirected to CareGrade and then,
(04:02):
through CareGrade, they would bedirected to BetterHelprade and
then, through CareGrade, theywould be directed to BetterHelp,
and then BetterHelp wouldallegedly show that this person
was booked up.
And why don't you try one ofour therapists?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So a really good base of good practices.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, yeah.
This week we're going to talkabout the problems that it's
causing for therapists and alsofor the clients themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
We're going to start with the therapist and one of
the biggest problems isadvertising.
So, as we kind of talked aboutwhere BetterHelp had for one
month just for podcast, wasdoing an advertisement of $8
million for just one month,which is, I mean, it's
(04:50):
astounding.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But then I also think about how many ads even I have
come across.
Like I don't get American adsand podcasts because I'm not in
the U S, but like watchingYouTube videos or other things.
I see so many better helpadvertisements.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, yeah and, and see so many better help
advertisements yeah, yeah, and,and the thing is, is okay.
So for a therapist, myadvertising budget is about $50
a month, so 8 million versus $50.
Guess who's going to be on thefirst 20 pages of Google?
Yeah, it's not you, yeah it's.
(05:32):
It's not going to be me bymyself, is it's uh going to be?
Yeah, better help.
Basically they're, they're in.
In my opinion, they are justkind of coming in and kicking
down the door for therapists andjust basically trying to
monopolize the entire therapyindustry.
(05:53):
This is also me speaking as aprevious therapist of BetterHelp
.
So again, these are myexperiences that I had with
better help and I also have seenon better help.
We had a therapist page talkingabout like different things of
(06:17):
better help itself and how toimprove it and things like that.
I see a lot of people also havethe same thing and also I'm
seeing, unfortunately, that it'snot getting any better.
To start off, let's talk aboutlike their pay for the therapist
and their pay scale is kind ofa weird scale.
(06:40):
It's you're getting paid 30 perhour.
That's per hour, not persession.
And how long is the session?
session is anywhere from a halfan hour to 45 minutes okay and
and also on top of that, that is, if the client shows up
(07:01):
perfectly on time and you havethat 45 minute session and you
close out at 45 minutes on thedot, you are getting paid $23
and 50 cents for that onesession.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And that's before, of course, taxes and other things,
and I'm a is there a fee thatthey take on top of that?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Just so.
For instance, if you workthrough Upwork, you're you get
paid by whatever agreement youhave with the client that you're
working for, but Upwork thentakes a percentage of that.
No so so you see that you'relike oh, I would have earned
like I.
You know, I put it in.
I'm like I want to earn $25 anhour.
(07:49):
And they're like cool, you gotpaid $25 now, but ha ha, we took
10% of it, so you didn't get 25an hour.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, so basically, and we'll we'll talk about this
in a second but the clientthemselves is paying anywhere
from $75 to $90 per session.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Wait, wait, hold on.
I mean I understand that, likethere's, there's going to be
overhead, of course, when youhave a company and then you're
paying people to do that work.
I mean I've worked liketeaching for companies before,
so I understand that, but threetimes as much is what they're
paying.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So that that is for the firstfive hours, though, and because
it's again, it's a really weirdpay scale, and I'll talk about
why I think they have the payscale like this.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And is it so?
Is that like per week, permonth?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So for the first five hours every week, you are
getting paid $30 an hour.
For the second five hours aweek, you're getting paid $35 an
hour.
For hours 10 to 15, $40, so onand so on, up until.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That is such bullshit .
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
What.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And again, this is my personal belief of why they're
doing this is that they arehoping for a lot of therapists
who are just trying to fill inan extra couple of slots here
and there.
And you know, generally youmight need.
You know, like, looking at myschedule, I have like maybe six
(09:24):
slots that might need to be, uh,that could be filled.
So even if I saw all six ofthem, I'd still be under that
five hours because, again,that's 45 minutes per session
and for six people, that three,four and a half hours.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh, my God.
So, it is such a scam, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it is kind of so.
Yeah, I mean, you have clientor you have therapists like that
who are just trying to fill ina couple of extra slots, Just as
you were kind of saying thatfor that session I would be
getting $23 and 50 cents perhour.
Meanwhile, better help is gain$75.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So they're getting the remaining $50 and $50, 50,
$51 and 50 cents and again youstill have to pay taxes on yours
.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
like that, none of has been taken out because,
right, you're a freelancer,right, uh, so one of the
problems is said okay, so 23, 23, yeah, three dollars per per
hour.
If you were to do the wholebetter help and just do 40 hours
of better help, then as a whole, because of that tier, you
(10:53):
could make up to $2,250 permonth or per week.
I'm sorry or per week, I'm sorry, okay, I was about to be like
whoa $2,250 per week and that istaking on an absolute full
caseload that every client comesin perfectly on time and you
(11:17):
finish on time.
So again you kind of thinkabout the fact that it's only 45
minute sessions that you nowhave to do.
You have to see at minimum 50clients to be able to do a 40
hour work week.
And yeah, yeah.
(11:38):
So I mean, with that type ofkid, with with that type of tier
, like I said, you're getting$2,250 a week, which sounds
great until you remember taxes.
And so as a therapist generally, I will be putting in about
(11:59):
like 35% in the savings fortaxes, percent in the in the
savings for taxes.
So you kind of figure that, okay, that's about fifteen hundred
dollars a week.
So, okay, if you are workingabsolute full-time, all of your
clients show up, then you knowyou're going, you know you're
(12:21):
going to get $6,000 a monthafter taxes, which is not too
bad.
But again, now you're having todo a full caseload and probably
even going to have to do morebecause of the fact that people
call out, people cancel at thelast minute, people don't show
up.
And if they don't show up, orif they do cancel at the last
(12:43):
minute, you only make $7.50 forthat entire session.
That was lost.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
What the fuck.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
But now do they still pay the full amount?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
See now that I don't know, I don't know if they give
them like that opportunity, I Imy personal opinion, I wouldn't
think that a tech giant likethem would be like, oh no
problem, we'll pay the 750 foryou yeah, from everything you've
told me so far, I wouldn't besurprised if they still pay the
(13:19):
full amount for a missed thingand that money just kind of
magically disappears in theether.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We don't know, of course, but it wouldn't surprise
me right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So the other way that that therapist uh can get paid
is by, uh, the messages back andforth.
So, okay, if, if a client has aquestion, like throughout the
week, and they write to thetherapist saying, hey, you know,
I need help on this, orwhatever, and you write a
(13:54):
message back, you do get alittle bit of money for reading,
you do get a little bit ofmoney for sending a message back
to the client.
However, they have like a verykind of stingy way of doing it,
at least in my experience, whereit was, if you wrote back more
(14:14):
than what the client wrote toyou, that you would only get
paid for a certain amount.
So what the fuck?
I I think it was like twice asmuch as as what the client wrote
to you, anything.
After twice as much as that,then they just say well, it's on
your own.
Client might, might ask me,since I I work a lot with with
(14:37):
trauma, I might.
I do a lot of work with, uh,cognitive processing therapy,
which a lot of it is.
It's homework that I send homewith the person and you know
I'll ask them if they need helpwith something.
You know, please feel free toask me Because I want to make
sure that they're gettingeverything right and that when I
(15:02):
see them next week that we canjust kind of go with the flow
and continue moving forward.
So a client might send mesomething like hey, I'm not too
sure about like what stuckpoints are.
Okay, that's one sentence.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I would hope your answer would be more than
twice the length of that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, so like if I'm trying to tell them
exactly what his tuck point is.
I'm writing like a pretty mucha novel, you know like.
So after the second sentence,at least in my experience,
anything after that you're notgetting paid for.
So there is that.
And then kind of with thiswhole thing of like you know
(15:44):
like, having to take on such alarge caseload, that 50 plus
people, just to make sure thatyou make that that 40, 40 hours,
I mean, you're basically havingto work 45, 50 hours to make
sure that you do come acrossthat cross that, and with that
(16:09):
amount of people, again you'reprobably gonna need to have a
caseload of like 75 people, youknow, to make sure that you fill
in, and that's going to createburnout Very, very quick.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Oh yeah, I mean at that rate, you know, because
it's one thing to say and we allrun into this as freelancers.
You hit those moments whereyou're like, oh, I've got too
many projects, but it's a shortterm thing.
You're like all right, cool, I,you know you power through it,
you get it done.
But like, very quickly, itstarts to weigh on you and
(16:38):
quality goes down.
Yeah, Like across it, no one'simmune to it.
Like if you were workingovertime that much in any job,
the quality will go down right,right, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
It's impossible to be able to kind of be fully there
again when you're working like10 hour days, you know, six days
a week, like you know.
And another thing is, is thatso, as a freelancer, like one of
the beautiful things aboutbeing a freelancer is you're
(17:15):
your own balls, you're able to,you're able to make sure, or
you're able to work your ownhours, you're able to take on
the, the, the, the clients thatyou want to, you're able to.
That's, that's the beauty offreelancing you are your own
boss.
Obviously, even as a freelancer, you're signing a contract for
(17:37):
you know, like I'm gonna havethis done by this amount of time
, that's.
But but outside of like justthe, the contract, the end date
of when this can be done, you'reyou're able to set your own
hours, you're able to uh setyour own way of doing things.
The end game better be done, orelse you know they can say that
(17:58):
, well, breach of contract.
You know, good luck, uh,getting the money out of that.
So so you know, like one of thethings is that you kind of have
to ask yourself, as a personworking for BetterHelp, are you
really a freelancer?
Because there's a lot of thingswhere they would have that you
(18:18):
had a message back.
You know a person with acertain amount of time that you
had 24 hours.
You know a person with acertain amount of time that you
had 24 hours.
So that means that if youwanted to work four days a week
and work, let's say, thursday,friday, saturday, sunday, and
somebody messages you on Monday,Really so you couldn't even set
(18:42):
a time.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
be like I am not available these days and so,
like this is my time off.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
They told you that, other than weekends, you had a
message back within 24 hours.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
No, that the whole point of freelancing is I can do
my work at 2am.
Yeah, I mean I guess you couldif you really want to to.
But like, the whole idea isthat you set your schedule yeah,
exactly no, no that's the thing, like so.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So, in that respect, you're, you're already being
told when you're, when you haveto work, and and what your work
requirements are, are to be,which you know, it's, it's.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's kind of towing the line of what is a
freelancer, and I know thatcompanies like Uber have gotten
into hot water over this, likein the past.
I'm sure that there are manymore battles to come over gig
slash freelancers, but there isa difference and when you start
(19:45):
setting these requirements,you're you're headed dangerously
close to that.
Oh, this is an employee, uh,yeah yeah, and so there's there.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
There's that whole thing where and then also on top
of that, like, if you do notsend out a message, then what
they're able to do is they'reable to say, okay, you get no
new clients until you do thesethings.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And they know they can, because there will always
be new desperate people, newtherapists coming to the
platform.
It's like all these onlineworkplaces like Preply, italki
all of them they're shit.
They treat their teachers likeshit because they know they know
that there will be new peoplecoming.
(20:34):
There were always people whowere desperate, like I need to
make money.
Therapists who were like I justgraduated and I'm looking at
the amount of money that I oweand like I need clients, I need
hours, I need something, andthey will turn to a place like
this because that's how you getit.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, exactly, and.
And the other big this was,this was, this was.
It sounds petty, but this was ahuge thing for me is that I
(21:17):
would have when, when I wasworking with lot better, they
would have their whole thingworked in, where if somebody
from BetterHelp scheduled on toBetterHelp, then it would go to
my Google calendar and thatwould shut off my Google
calendar was also connected tothe insurance company, so then
(21:41):
that would be blocked off forthe insurance company.
However, it didn't work inreverse, so like if an insurance
company client were to book anappointment at such and such
time, then it wouldn't be takingoff the better help, and then,
you know, if somebody happenedto try booking for the same time
(22:03):
, then I'd have to let them knowlike hey, look, I already had,
like you know, this done or thistime filled.
Unfortunately, I can't see youbecause I'm not.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
That is such an odd quirk to have in your system.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It's really odd.
I don't think you're beingpetty about that, it's I support
your hatred for this.
Because I feel like there is away to not have that happen,
which then says that it is achoice to keep it like that yeah
is what that implies to me yeah, and and and you know, as far
(22:46):
as, like you know, like their,their support system.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I'm not going to go too deep into it because I, I
you know again, I don't want tobreak any confidentiality.
However, I will say this isthat I have gone through times
where I did go through a timewhere I had a client that was
inappropriate for better help,and so better help they do have
(23:12):
in their agreement that this isnot meant for like anything
intense.
This is not meant for anythinglike you know, like serious or
like severe or like needed rightnow, that this is basically
they're advertising themselvesor they have in legal terms,
(23:33):
basically this for like slightdepression or slight anxiety.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
you know, like very right, but if I'm in a crisis on
a good day, I don't read theterms and agreements right.
So, like if I'm in a crisis,I'm definitely not going to read
that right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
So I I had a client that was linked to me and was
completely inappropriate forBetterHelp services as a whole,
and this person ended upthreatening to find me and kill
me.
Oh okay, oh okay.
(24:16):
And so I let BetterHelp knowthat.
Hey look, you know this iswhat's going on.
You know this person isinappropriate for this platform
as a whole and this person isthreatening to find me and kill
me.
The response that I got waswell, let this person know that
they're inappropriate forBetterHelp.
Was well, let this person knowthat they're inappropriate for
better help, and then, once yousend them that, you let us know
(24:40):
and then we'll take them off theplatform.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So we're just going to ignore the threat of murder.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
By someone who may not be in a really good mental
state.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Cool, cool, cool and we're're gonna ignore it.
And then also the person whowas threatened for murder.
Um, I want you to go back andand let them know that engage
with them again engage with themagain.
Let them know that, hey, you'renot gonna get your way period,
and I'm recommending, to betterhelp, that they take you off the
(25:17):
platform altogether.
So yeah, okay that that that isthe support that I I had gotten
from better help support.
Wow, I.
I'm gonna close off problemswith therapists with one last
thing is we talked about thislast week where the fcc find
(25:39):
better help 7.8 million dollarsand it was because of them
selling off information tofacebook, instagram, snapchat
and all that one of the thingsin that that group that I was
telling you about earlier, whereyou know we talk about better
help and everything.
A lot of therapists wereactually really worried about
(25:59):
our license.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So that is something to kind of keep in mind.
Is you know at least for me, ifa company is being that shady
with again A company is beingthat shady with again not not
having a licensed therapist tobegin with until like 2017, that
they were selling offinformation, that they whether
it was knowledge or not thatthey were working with other
(26:31):
shady companies to have peoplere redirected to better help,
and the fact that again, whetherthey know this or not, I think
they know this Things likefaithmindorg or com redirecting
(26:56):
people to better help.
To me, that shows that theydon't care about the therapist,
they don't care about theclients.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
No, to me, even just that, like all of those things,
even like one or two of themcombined, is enough to say it's
like you were here for the moneyis the impression that you're
giving, and then, when you justkeep stacking it up, it's like I
don't see how you can argueotherwise, when everything you
have done up until this pointshows this oh god.
(27:43):
So this leads me to the secondhalf of this.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Uh show, uh the problems for clients because we
haven't had enough problemsalready, right, right and, and
you know, and here's the thingis that these are the people
that that I really feel for forthe most.
Um, yeah, I, I do feel that, asa therapist, like you know,
like um, we're really kind ofgetting screwed.
But you know, the the mostimportant person here is the
(28:08):
people who are asking for help.
So, starting off, you know, asI was kind of saying, basically
with the clients, they'regetting a subscription base, so
they're paying $75 to $90 persession and they're able to see
(28:31):
the therapist, let's say, fourtimes a month, the therapist,
let's say four times a month,and that they have unlimited
access to, you know, likewriting to the therapists and
things like that.
The problem with that is that,from what I understand and from
what I've heard from clients, isthat it is either use it or
(28:53):
lose.
It.
Is that it is either use it orlose it?
No, but what if you're going onvacation?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Use it or lose it.
What if you're just in a periodwhere, like, maybe you don't
need to be coming as much?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So okay the vacation, Okay the vacation.
And I don't know factually ifit is use it or lose it, or if
they're able to say toBetterHelp like, hey, I'm going
on vacation, Can we move it outa week or something like that.
But I do know, like if theywere like, let's say, I'm
(29:33):
working with a client and we'vepretty much taken care of like
their depression or anythinglike that, and they want to kind
of go biweekly.
There are subscriptions thatare biweekly Okay, there are
subscriptions as like once amonth.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
But you still have to set that ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, you have to set that ahead of time, so but yeah
, I mean, mean you know againthat that's.
They do have things where it'slike you know and try the first
month for free and things likethat, which that kind of gets
back to uh guess where thatmoney is coming from although
(30:14):
it's better they're.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They're teaching websites that the student pays
for the first lesson but theteacher doesn't get any money.
Yeah, the first lesson is freeyeah, fuck that right, right.
It's like no, even if it's,it's a free for everybody.
(30:35):
The problem is is that thenpeople are like, oh well, it's
free, so like I can just kind ofbop around a little bit and try
out some people.
It's like, yeah, but you've nowtaken up some of these valuable
time and they didn't get paidfor.
That did you ever think about?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
that, oh god, so.
So what?
One of the things, like youknow, due to the fact of
therapists who you know, we'renot getting a lot of money.
You know, it's basically liketrying to make ends meet.
And so, if you're trying tomake ends meet, guess how much
(31:10):
money you have for learningdifferent types of therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, no, yeah a lot of zeros a lot, yeah, yeah, a
lot of zero, nothing in frontand and here's the problem, like
is that learning differentmodes of therapy is not cheap at
all, not even in the least.
(31:38):
Which I always found funny ishow, as a whole, like social
workers are one of the lowestpaid master's degree like jobs,
but yet everything is for themto keep their license, for them
to uh move forward is the mostexpensive things on the world.
(32:02):
So so like different types ofuh therapy, like I mean, you're,
you're paying like thousands ofdollars, so like for the
training emdr.
yeah, for the training, for thesupervision after the training
to be certified.
So for example, like as ofright now I am taking gotman
(32:25):
training for couple therapy, itis 700 for level one and two,
it's a thousand dollars forlevel three and then a thousand
dollars for uh to be registeredfor the supervision and then
supervision generally is about$200, $200, $250 per session
(32:49):
with supervision and usuallylike that type of training calls
for like 10 sessions.
So that's another $2,500 justfor the supervision.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So you're looking at like five to six K right there.
Okay, just to be certified inthis.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Just to be certified and that's just one type of
therapy.
Yeah, which?
Okay, that wouldn't be so badif all you needed was one type
of therapy.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But you don't.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
But you don't, because there are 8 billion
people on this planet right nowand everybody, you know we're
different, so we're going totake in things differently.
We're going to, you know, we'regoing to need, have different
(33:44):
needs and things like that.
So, like you know, before I getattacked by the therapist
community, things like the veryfirst thing that I had ever
learned was cognitive behavioraltherapy is to look at your
thoughts and see if there arebetter ways of looking at it.
(34:21):
And if you're talking aboutsomebody who is sexually
assaulted, you can't just say,well, you know, like, let's go
back to that this way.
You know, let's go back to thatand, you know, think a little
bit different.
Maybe the guy just didn'trealize that, you know, you
weren't his.
Oh my god no, like, yeah, no solike I mean, there there is like
(34:50):
um, cognitive processingtherapy, which is a branch of
kind of behavioral therapytherapy that is more appropriate
for, like trauma.
It was actually CBT that wasdesigned for trauma, which is
looking at the beliefs that wereformed from trauma rather than
looking at the thoughts of whatcould have been.
(35:10):
You know so.
So you know you do need, as atherapist, you do need multiple
types of therapy in order to beable to provide the best you
know help for for your clients.
So one of the big things is isthat you're now having
therapists who are completelyunapparent or unprepared.
You're having therapists whohas that one mode of training,
(35:33):
if any mode of training, andthey're just kind of taking a
shot in the dark and there's nopossibility for them to continue
getting trained.
Now.
Better help, I will say they dohave, like you know, like these
little training modules whichyou know like, think of it this
way, like we, we've all had thisin college.
(35:56):
You know, especially nowadays,where it was.
Just like you know, like the,the training modules, like you
know, like the, the professorwho was too lazy to you know,
really take or teach class andand just threw up, like you know
, you, you go through these 14modules one per week and then
you turned in an assignment andthen you got a grade.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, the ones where it's like learn how to do this
amazing thing in just threehours.
It's like no, there are thingsyou can learn to do in three
hours, Like there are definitelycourses and certificates that
it's short enough and sweetenough that you can just like go
through it and done.
But I think a lot of this stuffthere's a lot of theory that
(36:39):
you need to absorb.
There's a lot of examples thatyou need to absorb.
There may be some questionsthat you work through so that
you understand how this fits andhow it doesn't.
That's not a A little onlinequiz thing that you do.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, there's a time and place for those, and this is
not it.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Now I'm just imagining a whole bunch of
therapists who have basicallydone like the free version of
Coursera.
That's what they're working offof, and that is a terrifying
image, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah, and the thing is, you, you know, like
rightfully so, uh, just becauseyou took a better help, uh, cbt
course doesn't mean you're, youknow, certified no no, you might
have basic understanding of ituh, at least that's what I would
imagine, but you know, as faras actually fully understanding
(37:37):
it, no, yeah, and I mean, whenit comes to my mental health,
like I, I this is one of thosethings where cheapness is not
going to be better no, no, thereare.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
there are a lot of things in life where the
cheapest option is not only notthe best option, it's kind of
one of the worst options,because in this case you're
getting something that's like,oh, it's kind of that thing, but
it's actually not.
So now you're just wasting yourmoney because you're
potentially getting bad advicethat's not even accurate.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
You think you're getting X, y, z and you're
getting something worse right,right it's uh, I love this for
all of us, that this, this isdefinitely how we convince
people to get therapy you know,we we kind of talked about
earlier about like you know,like um, for the problems with
(38:41):
therapists is that they'rehaving a caseload of like 60, 70
people, uh, just to make endsmeet.
And you know again, if you area therapist for for trying to
trying to get your the maxincome from better help, and
you're working 40 hours, you cando 45 hours, you can do 50, 80
(39:05):
hours a week, um, but just to doeven 40 hours, that's yeah, way
too much.
But if you're having like 75clients you know in your
caseload, let me ask you like,you know, like, if over a month
you know and I'm being generoushere If over a month you met 75
(39:27):
different people, how many ofthose stories are you actually
going to remember?
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Zero.
I mean, I can tell you, evenfrom my experience as a
freelancer like because of theway I work, where I have, like
different clients who aresending me different projects
for translation.
They all have different styleguides and you will hit that
moment where sometimes, eventhough it's a project you've
been working on for years, youjust like you're like what am I
(39:55):
capitalizing here?
Like, what set of punctuationrules do we follow here?
Because it's the fourth timetoday that I've had to switch
mentally between, like, what arewe using what you know?
What rules are we followinghere?
Versus not following there?
Because there are there are allsorts of like weird
capitalization and grammar rulesthat apply to video games that
(40:16):
don't apply to other things, andyeah, that's how mistakes get
made.
And then the project managerwrites you back and it's like
what happened?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
you're like, you see, you know, one of the things I I
remember, like in in learningabout therapy itself, is that
one of the best things that youcan do to really form a rapport
with somebody is, you know,being able to recall something
(40:46):
back from like last session.
You know, oh, I remember lastsession that you were talking
about such and such like.
It gives it, you know, it givesthat person like and and
rightfully so Like if, if youknow.
My therapist is like oh yeah,you know, I remember you were
talking that person, andrightfully so.
My therapist is like oh yeah, Iremember you were talking about
so-and-so, and especially ifyou call them out by name or
something like that, it givesthat okay, I feel a closer
(41:10):
connection, I can be able to saythings, as opposed to if you're
going through 75 clients in aweek.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
You don't remember that, you don't remember their
names yeah, you know, and I meanlike.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
So there are times where, like you know, like, uh,
that I am meeting with theclient for the second time and
especially, you know, I mighthave to look at, you know like,
I'll look at their notes, theirnotes from the previous week,
just to kind of jog my memory.
Oh, okay, I remember who I'mgoing to be working with here in
a second.
(41:44):
If you're already working 40hours just seeing clients,
chances are you're probably notgoing to be taking notes, you're
probably not going to havesomething there, because from my
experience you didn't have toturn in notes.
You know you could write notes,but if you're working with the
(42:04):
client again, if you're alreadydoing 40 hours, you're not going
to put another 10 hours of, youknow, like, writing out notes
no, because that's unpaid workat that point right and so so
it's.
You're kind of taking away thatpersonal touch from the
therapist because they're youknow they're going through so
(42:25):
many people and also, if atherapist is going through you
know 10 hours a day, just to youknow be able to make sure that
they do hit that 40 hours, toyou know be able to make sure
that they do hit that 40 hoursand they're working 50 hours,
monday through Fridays, 10 hoursa day, and you are client
(42:46):
number Cause you got to figurewith 10 hours a day like 10
actual hours.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
My God you're actually seeing 15 clients.
Yeah, or or.
I'm sorry about 12.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
seeing 15 clients, yeah, or or.
I'm sorry about 12 or 13clients.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Even still like if you're just that one at the very
end.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Even somewhere in the middle, Cause by that point the
therapist is like I need to eat, Like I need to move, but I'm
sitting like stuck sitting heretalking to you who I?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
really don't care about at the moment.
Well, you know, okay, if it wasjust peeing and pooping, or
well, not pooping, but if it wasjust having to get up and go to
the bathroom real quick, youknow, like I've done that,
excuse myself, like I'm reallysorry, I have to go.
Excuse myself Like I'm reallysorry, I have to go to Beth.
Yeah, that's one thing, butafter like six, seven, if your
client number eight, nine, 10,11, 12, that therapist is
(43:47):
mentally drained.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
And is probably not going to give you their full
attention, and especially like,if you're talking about, like
you know, a possible crisis, orif you were talking about
something that had really hityou hard, you know, throughout
the week and your client, your,your therapist, is just there.
(44:11):
Oh my god, I cannot wait to go.
I'm so fucking done with thisshit.
You know like yeah, burnout isa thing.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Quality care right there.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, that is not exactly.
You're not going to get exactlythe most quality of care and
your therapist is not going tobe, you know, fully, there by
the end of the day.
Yeah, so this is going to causea lot of problems as far as,
like you know, there by the endof the day.
Yeah, so this is getting close.
A lot of problems as far as,like you know, trust in therapy
itself.
So I know like, uh, one of thethings I had seen from a client
(44:49):
or an ex-client who posted up ontiktok about how they went
through three differenttherapists within a matter of
two months and one of thereasons why they went to therapy
was for abandonment issue.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
And if you, if you have a therapist who is working
40, 50 hours a week, guess howquickly their, their burnout
rate is going.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, and if you're the newest client or if you're
kind of a weird time, you're theone that gets cut.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yeah, and and well, and on top of that, like again
you know therapists who are, youknow, working that amount of
time, they're going toeventually just say like, okay,
I can't deal with this shitanymore.
Yeah, I'm working, you know, 50hours a week and I'm barely
able to get by.
And they quit Better Help, andnow that person's moving on to
(45:46):
the next therapist.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
And I mean again if you're having therapists working
50 hours a week, well, theburnouts can happen pretty
quickly.
50 hours a week, well, theburnouts can happen pretty
quickly.
So you know again, you knowthis person who is going to
therapy for abandonment.
Not only you know was thisperson saying about how
(46:09):
therapists would leave and thatshe would have to get rematched.
She also talked about howtherapists would just cut, you
know, and they would just sayokay, it's eight o'clock.
You know what I can't doanymore and just like skip out
of the sessions.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
It's not good, but like yeah, that's what happens
when you're overworked.
Is at some point you crack andyou're like I can't Right, I
don't care.
At this point, Like, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
You know like it's.
It's funny.
Um, I I saw on, you know likeagain being being on facebook,
like I, I'm in like a lot oftherapy therapist groups, uh,
and I saw somebody who said, uh,I'm experiencing or I think I'm
burnout.
I'm getting down to the pointwhere anytime that a client
(46:58):
calls out or misses anappointment, I feel excited.
And that's what burnout feelslike.
It's when you're actually like,oh my God, I just can't deal
with it.
It's just completely draining.
Yeah, you as a person, you'regoing to probably cut out,
you're probably going to leave,and now this person is left
(47:25):
without a therapist.
And you know, like I mean, ifthey're going through that, if
that's their first view oftherapy, it's.
You know therapy as a whole isis a hard thing.
And I tell a lot of people likeyou know, like that, I
congratulate a lot of people fortaking that first step, because
(47:47):
just asking for help is is hardas hell.
And if your first experience intherapy is somebody who is not
listening to you and who'scutting out all the time, you
know first impressions, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, it takes a lot for some people to get the
therapy and then that's what youmeet and it's like we'll see.
I knew all along that this wasbullshit.
Like why did I waste my moneycoming here and now you've lost
that person completely?
Now trying to ever get them togo back will be so much harder
(48:23):
because they got burned by this.
And it's different to theburnout versus somebody retiring
, because when it's retiring youknow you have like a little bit
of forewarning, like hey, I'mgoing to be leaving soon, so
let's kind of make a plan forwhere you're going to go and
what you're going to do.
And can I recommend you tosomebody else?
And this is just like rugpulled out from under your feet.
I'm gone.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Figure it out.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, and that that that was the thing was that this
person was saying with one oftheir therapists was that they
had a session with the therapistand then a couple of weeks
later, or like a couple of dayslater, they get a email from
better help saying, hey, yourtherapist just left, we're going
(49:08):
to rematch you with somebodyelse.
And it's just like and again,this person was going to therapy
for abandonment issues- yeah.
So so I mean, you're probablygoing to the worse in the
symptoms and you know anotherway that I feel that BetterHelp
(49:29):
is promoting symptoms is a lotof things kind of come down to
like codependency.
You know like um, uh, we talk alot about like um attachment
styles, and you know if you'retalking about like an anxious or
wait, wait, hold on.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Is avoidant anxious or anxious avoid?
Is that like a real thing?
Speaker 1 (49:51):
oh yeah, I mean there there's.
So there's secure, unsecure andanxious.
I'm just going to double check.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Sorry, this is a tangent, but like I see this
come up on the internet all thetime and I know that half of it
is not true, because this is theinternet we're talking about,
but I just wasn't sure whichhalf.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Secure, anxious, avoiding and disorganized.
Oh, I've never heard aboutdisorganized before so okay, so,
uh, so yeah, um, uh, I guessthat that can be unsecure as
well.
So you know and and that's kindof the thing is that you know,
(50:35):
with attachment styles, like youknow, like that's one of the
things is that if you have, youknow, like an anxious, you know
like attachment, somebody withanxious attachment is going to
constantly need you know thatbeing told that things are going
to be okay, that you're okay,being told that things are going
(50:58):
to be okay, that you're okay,which maybe at the beginning,
hearing that from your therapistis going to feel good, but you
know, over time, that'ssomething that we can work on,
so that way you're not needingthat all the time.
But also, like the other thingis is that you are having
somebody with 24, 24, sevenaccess to therapists.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, that's definitely going to help.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
They're.
They're getting right to thetherapist, and and again this
you know, the therapist has toprovide back within a certain
amount of time, Unless it's theweekend.
You're you're promotingcodependency and that's one of
the things is that we're tryingto work with people to get them
away from having to constantlyrely on somebody else.
(51:46):
Part of the whole thing is withtherapy is self-empowerment
being able to, you know, havethat person do something and and
feel like, holy shit, I can dothis.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
If you're giving access to that therapist and
with that expectation thatthey're going to respond back to
you right away, it's basicallyleaving the heroin addict in the
room with a bunch of heroin andsaying, okay, just stay away
from it and just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah, at some point they're going to cave.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yeah.
So, with all that being said,I'm going to take over this time
, for where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (52:33):
I mean, it makes it you're the one who's actually
experienced this, so I feel likeyou're maybe a little more
qualified.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
As far as therapy goes, I think that BetterHelp
was good in the fact that theydid introduce and that they did
make it available for onlinetherapy.
Today, there are a lot ofinsurance companies that will
pay for online therapy.
Today there are a lot ofinsurance companies that will
pay for online therapy.
There are a lot of EAPsemployee-assisted programs that
(53:08):
allows people to go online andget therapy.
The therapists are getting paida hell of a lot better.
They're not taking on like sucha large caseload.
The client is getting moreexperience therapy, so there are
sources of online therapy thatare way, way better than
(53:30):
BetterHelp.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
That's good to know.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
And you know this is one of those things where I
understand that that therapy isexpensive.
But again, as we kind of talkedabout before, there's a reason
for that, you know it's.
You know, when you're talkingabout your own mental health,
you don't want somebody who onlyknows one type of therapy, want
somebody who only knows onetype of therapy.
(53:57):
And again, you know, like, youknow, in my opinion, something
like CBT is not going to behelpful for somebody who's going
through trauma, because youknow you can't think in a more
you know, quote, unquoterealistic way of you know,
sexual assault, because whathappened is real to begin with.
(54:19):
You know, like, but there areways that you're able to look at
the beliefs that are formedfrom it.
You know, like, as far as trust, intimacy, self-esteem,
security and power control, youknow, and that's what cognitive
processing therapy kind of goesinto is looking at how we have
(54:41):
those things and how findingthat medium ground instead of
going from, rather than sittingthere and saying that nobody can
be trusted.
You know there's noone-size-fits-all, and again,
that gives the therapistopportunities to see different
or have different ways of goingthrough therapy and giving
(55:06):
different practices.
I think that you know,unfortunately.
You know, and if it reallycomes down to it, I know with
myself I have a couple spotsopen for low-income therapy.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
I know many people do .
I've seen this idea of asliding pay scale before, where
it's, like you know, withinreason.
I understand that some peopletruly may not have the budget
for what this is worth, and so,for you specifically, we can
work with this.
I think many people, manytherapists, would be open to
(55:42):
that yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
So I mean, you know, like I know, when I was going
through a lot and and didn'thave money, um, yeah, like I
have money now, uh, my mytherapist, uh, you know he
lowered his price down, uh a lotjust to be able to like
accommodate, um, and I do thesame thing for you know, like I
(56:07):
said, I have a couple slots, uh,for people with low income.
Uh, you know therapy and uh, soif you are looking for low
income therapy, you can go on topsychology today and you're
able to find, you know, like atherapist with a sliding scale.
(56:27):
Okay, so there are options outthere.
You know, if price is the bigthing, so, basically, where do
we go from here?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
is we already have all of the necessary things in
place?
Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah, Okay, it's just being able to access them.
And again, talking to insurancecompany, talking to your job,
talking to looking up onpsychology, today there are
different ways of being able to,uh, access these resources.
And for therapists, um, youknow, I would say stay the fuck
(57:05):
away from better help.
And that's again, that's myopinion.
But yeah, my opinion is staythe fuck away from better help.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I support this.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
So, with all that being said, where would you put
this on our scale of toxicity?
Would you say that this is agreen potato?
Uh, where you can just scrapeoff the green and it's okay?
Uh, death cap mushroom, whereyou have a 50 50 shot of uh
getting killed?
Or would you say that this isan antifreeze?
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I'm going to have to go with antifreeze because I
hate BetterHelp.
I had an idea that they werekind of slimy before from stuff
that you had said and stuff I'dkind of seen.
It also tends to be one ofthose things that like when you
see the same company pop up overand over and over and over and
over and over and over again andads over and over and over and
(58:00):
over and over and over and overagain and adds that to me is a
red flag that you're having toconstantly advertise all the
time, all these different peopleall over the place.
It's weird when it's a constantthing.
I also think that they get thisbecause they have made it
really clear, to my mind, thatthey only care about money.
I mean, see the fact that theysold people's private data to
(58:26):
social media companies there arelaws against this and the fact
that they got slapped with alittle fine.
That's the only thing that hasstopped them, but they did it.
Somebody approved that andsomebody else was.
Somebody had the idea, somebodyapproved it and they went
through with it and they didn'tseem to think that there was any
issue with that.
(58:48):
I desperately want to like thembecause I love the idea of
online therapy.
I love the idea of therapistsbeing able to work freelance and
, as you said, pick and chooseyour hours and how you want to
do things and work around yourexisting schedule.
As a fellow freelancer, I getit, but I feel like better help
is just like the worst ofeverything, like it's bad for
(59:09):
the patients.
They're more likely to get lowquality care while still paying
quite a bit of money.
It's bad for therapists becausethey're being pushed to work
way too much, which in turn, isthen bad for the patients.
And it's bad for therapy as awhole because it just cheapens
the whole experience and makespeople not take it seriously and
(59:33):
increases the likelihood thatpeople are going to have bad
experiences either patientshaving therapists who don't care
or therapists being like I haveall these patients and they
just keep canceling and I'mstressed and I'm overworked and
I'm out.
Like everyone loses withBetterHelp, except BetterHelp,
who takes all your money andspends it on ads.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
I will agree.
I will agree.
I think that the I was actuallythinking about this me of maybe
even downing it to jello withsprinkle antifreeze, just
because of the fact that betterhelp brought the ability of
therapy to come online.
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
This is true and that is a really important thing,
and I love this, that we have it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
But I think that 2020 would have done that too.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
That's true.
I think one way or another 2020, like the pandemic we would
have yeeted everything online.
I mean, we did for other stufftoo, because we had there was
all sorts of stuff like onlineclasses and stuff that we kind
of we were looking at, and thenthe pandemic people were like oh
no, let's just keep it this way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, and so, yeah, I'm going with
full-fledged antifreeze.
Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I think they deserve it.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Yeah, I think they pretty much deserve it.
So if you have any thoughts orif you're a therapist yourself
and you have stories of betterhelp, let us know.
At toxic, at awesome lifeskills dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
However, if you are better help and you are one of
their lawyers, you don't need tocontact us.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Yes, yes, yes.
If you are a lawyer ofBetterHelp, you can contact us
on our other email ofgofuckyourself at fuckyoucom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
We need this email now.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Allegedly yeah.
You can follow us on Instagram,Blue Sky and Facebook, and
we're looking forward to seeingyou all next week.
Until then, I've been ChrisVerpatchit, LCSW.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
And I've been Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Bye, bye.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Bye.
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