Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
Better Help: What Happens When Mental Health Becomes Just Another Business?
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.
Hi and welcome to Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people to their simplest ingredients. I'm your host, christopher Patchett LCSW.
Speaker 2:And I'm Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:First off, I want to start off with a correction from last week.
Speaker 2:Ooh, okay.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I had said was that my profile was on a Christian website and I said it was faithcom. It was actually faithmindcom. It was actually faith mindcom. After the show, lindsey and I I was trying to show her the the profile on faith mindcom and so at first we were looking up faithcom, use my name.
Speaker 2:We couldn't find it and yeah, I was ready to call you a liar, yeah yeah, and then I finally found it on faithmindcom.
Speaker 1:so that's the correction from last week. And to start off this week, we are going to also put in a little note that all opinions are that of Lindsay's and myself. We're going to use the word allegedly a lot of times, just because of the fact that the people that we are going to be talking about are very, very, very well known to send cease and desist letters If their name is not used in proper terms or whatever.
Speaker 2:I'm still telling you this is our ticket to stardom Us. A tiny little podcast that nobody listens to takes on better help and wins in a lawsuit. I mean, I say this as somebody who doesn't live in the US, so that's on you to do all of that stuff. But hey, if it worked out to do all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:But like hey, if it worked out. I'm now picturing our EP all dressed up in, like you know, a lawyer suit and everything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she would be such a good representative in court for us. How could they say no?
Speaker 1:She's scratching her ear and sniffing her foot.
Speaker 2:I know that's what she was doing. I was like really Molly right now looking very professional over there.
Speaker 1:So, yes, considering the fact that BetterHelp has lawyers of like ten hundred million dollars and we have a dog who is scratching her ear and sniffing her foot, lindsay and I really don't want to go down the course of law. No. So, with that being said, last week we talked about BetterHelp, the foundings of BetterHelp. We also talked about their advertisement. We talked about a lot of the problems that have happened until 2017 that they were founded by the FTC to sell data of their clients to Facebook, to Snapchat, and giving all these tech companies opportunities to sell you products for anxiety and depression and things like that when you're trying to get therapy. Also, we had talked about alleged unfair practices working with CareGrade, and whenever somebody was looking up for a therapist, that they would be directed to CareGrade and then, through CareGrade, they would be directed to BetterHelprade and then, through CareGrade, they would be directed to BetterHelp, and then BetterHelp would allegedly show that this person was booked up. And why don't you try one of our therapists?
Speaker 2:So a really good base of good practices.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. This week we're going to talk about the problems that it's causing for therapists and also for the clients themselves.
Speaker 2:I'm here for it.
Speaker 1:We're going to start with the therapist and one of the biggest problems is advertising. So, as we kind of talked about where BetterHelp had for one month just for podcast, was doing an advertisement of $8 million for just one month, which is, I mean, it's astounding.
Speaker 2:But then I also think about how many ads even I have come across. Like I don't get American ads and podcasts because I'm not in the U S, but like watching YouTube videos or other things. I see so many better help advertisements.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and, and see so many better help advertisements yeah, yeah, and, and the thing is, is okay. So for a therapist, my advertising budget is about $50 a month, so 8 million versus $50. Guess who's going to be on the first 20 pages of Google? Yeah, it's not you, yeah it's. It's not going to be me by myself, is it's uh going to be? Yeah, better help. Basically they're, they're in.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, they are just kind of coming in and kicking down the door for therapists and just basically trying to monopolize the entire therapy industry. This is also me speaking as a previous therapist of BetterHelp. So again, these are my experiences that I had with better help and I also have seen on better help. We had a therapist page talking about like different things of better help itself and how to improve it and things like that. I see a lot of people also have the same thing and also I'm seeing, unfortunately, that it's not getting any better. To start off, let's talk about like their pay for the therapist and their pay scale is kind of a weird scale. It's you're getting paid 30 per hour. That's per hour, not per session. And how long is the session?
Speaker 1:session is anywhere from a half an hour to 45 minutes okay and and also on top of that, that is, if the client shows up perfectly on time and you have that 45 minute session and you close out at 45 minutes on the dot, you are getting paid $23 and 50 cents for that one session.
Speaker 2:And that's before, of course, taxes and other things, and I'm a is there a fee that they take on top of that?
Speaker 1:What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Just so. For instance, if you work through Upwork, you're you get paid by whatever agreement you have with the client that you're working for, but Upwork then takes a percentage of that. No so so you see that you're like oh, I would have earned like I. You know, I put it in. I'm like I want to earn $25 an hour. And they're like cool, you got paid $25 now, but ha ha, we took 10% of it, so you didn't get 25 an hour.
Speaker 1:Well, so basically, and we'll we'll talk about this in a second but the client themselves is paying anywhere from $75 to $90 per session.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait, hold on. I mean I understand that, like there's, there's going to be overhead, of course, when you have a company and then you're paying people to do that work. I mean I've worked like teaching for companies before, so I understand that, but three times as much is what they're paying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that that is for the first five hours, though, and because it's again, it's a really weird pay scale, and I'll talk about why I think they have the pay scale like this.
Speaker 2:And is it so? Is that like per week, per month?
Speaker 1:So for the first five hours every week, you are getting paid $30 an hour. For the second five hours a week, you're getting paid $35 an hour. For hours 10 to 15, $40, so on and so on, up until.
Speaker 2:That is such bullshit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:And again, this is my personal belief of why they're doing this is that they are hoping for a lot of therapists who are just trying to fill in an extra couple of slots here and there. And you know, generally you might need. You know, like, looking at my schedule, I have like maybe six slots that might need to be, uh, that could be filled. So even if I saw all six of them, 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:Oh, my God. So, it is such a scam, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is kind of so. Yeah, I mean, you have client or you have therapists like that who are just trying to fill in a couple of extra slots, Just as you were kind of saying that for that session I would be getting $23 and 50 cents per hour. Meanwhile, better help is gain $75.
Speaker 2:So they're getting the remaining $50 and $50, 50, $51 and 50 cents and again you still have to pay taxes on yours.
Speaker 1: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 whole better help and just do 40 hours of better help, then as a whole, because of that tier, you could make up to $2,250 per month or per week.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry or per week, I'm sorry, okay, I was about to be like whoa $2,250 per week and that is taking on an absolute full caseload that every client comes in perfectly on time and you finish on time. So again you kind of think about the fact that it's only 45 minute sessions that you now have to do. You have to see at minimum 50 clients to be able to do a 40 hour work week. And yeah, yeah. So I mean, with that type of kid, 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 like 35% in the savings for taxes, percent in the in the savings for taxes.
Speaker 1:So you kind of figure that, okay, that's about fifteen hundred dollars a week. So, okay, if you are working absolute full-time, all of your clients show up, then you know you're going, you know you're going to get $6,000 a month after taxes, which is not too bad. But again, now you're having to do a full caseload and probably even going to have to do more because of the fact that people call out, people cancel at the last minute, people don't show up. And if they don't show up, or if they do cancel at the last minute, you only make $7.50 for that entire session. That was lost.
Speaker 2:What the fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But now do they still pay the full amount?
Speaker 1:See now that I don't know, I don't know if they give them like that opportunity, I I my personal opinion, I wouldn't think that a tech giant like them would be like, oh no problem, we'll pay the 750 for you yeah, from everything you've told me so far, I wouldn't be surprised if they still pay the full amount for a missed thing and that money just kind of magically disappears in the ether.
Speaker 2:We don't know, of course, but it wouldn't surprise me right.
Speaker 1:So the other way that that therapist uh can get paid is by, uh, the messages back and forth. So, okay, if, if a client has a question, like throughout the week, and they write to the therapist saying, hey, you know, I need help on this, or whatever, and you write a message back, you do get a little bit of money for reading, you do get a little bit of money for sending a message back to the client. However, they have like a very kind of stingy way of doing it, at least in my experience, where it was, if you wrote back more than what the client wrote to you, that you would only get paid for a certain amount. So what the fuck? I I think it was like twice as much 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.
Speaker 1:Client might, might ask me, since I I work a lot with with 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 home with the person and you know I'll ask them if they need help with something. You know, please feel free to ask me Because I want to make sure that they're getting everything right and that when I see them next week that we can just kind of go with the flow and continue moving forward. So a client might send me something like hey, I'm not too sure about like what stuck points are. Okay, that's one sentence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would hope your answer would be more than twice the length of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so like if I'm trying to tell them exactly what his tuck point is. I'm writing like a pretty much a novel, you know like. So after the second sentence, at least in my experience, anything after that you're not getting paid for. So there is that. And then kind of with this whole thing of like you know like, having to take on such a large caseload, that 50 plus people, just to make sure that you make that that 40, 40 hours, I mean, you're basically having to work 45, 50 hours to make sure that you do come across that cross that, and with that amount of people, again you're probably gonna need to have a caseload of like 75 people, you know, to make sure that you fill in, and that's going to create burnout Very, very quick.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean at that rate, you know, because it's one thing to say and we all run into this as freelancers. You hit those moments where you're like, oh, I've got too many projects, but it's a short term thing. You're like all right, cool, I, you know you power through it, you get it done. But like, very quickly, it starts to weigh on you and quality goes down. Yeah, Like across it, no one's immune to it. Like if you were working overtime that much in any job, the quality will go down right, right, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1:It's impossible to be able to kind of be fully there again when you're working like 10 hour days, you know, six days a week, like you know. And another thing is, is that so, as a freelancer, like one of the beautiful things about being a freelancer is you're your own balls, you're able to, you're able to make sure, or you're able to work your own hours, you're able to take on the, the, the, the clients that you want to, you're able to. That's, that's the beauty of freelancing you are your own boss. Obviously, even as a freelancer, you're signing a contract for you know, like I'm gonna have this done by this amount of time, that's. But but outside of like just the, the contract, the end date of when this can be done, you're you're able to set your own hours, you're able to uh set your own way of doing things. The end game better be done, or else you know they can say that, well, breach of contract. You know, good luck, uh, getting the money out of that.
Speaker 1:So so you know, like one of the things is that you kind of have to ask yourself, as a person working for BetterHelp, are you really a freelancer? Because there's a lot of things where they would have that you had a message back. You know a person with a certain amount of time that you had 24 hours. You know a person with a certain amount of time that you had 24 hours. So that means that if you wanted 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 a time.
Speaker 2:be like I am not available these days and so, like this is my time off.
Speaker 1:They told you that, other than weekends, you had a message back within 24 hours.
Speaker 2:No, that the whole point of freelancing is I can do my work at 2am. Yeah, I mean I guess you could if you really want to to. But like, the whole idea is that you set your schedule yeah, exactly no, no that's the thing, like so.
Speaker 1:So, in that respect, you're, you're already being told when you're, when you have to work, and and what your work requirements are, are to be, which you know, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:That's kind of towing the line of what is a freelancer, and I know that companies like Uber have gotten into hot water over this, like in the past. I'm sure that there are many more battles to come over gig slash freelancers, but there is a difference and when you start 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:There's that whole thing where and then also on top of that, like, if you do not send out a message, then what they're able to do is they're able to say, okay, you get no new clients until you do these things.
Speaker 2:And they know they can, because there will always be new desperate people, new therapists coming to the platform. It's like all these online workplaces like Preply, italki all of them they're shit. They treat their teachers like shit because they know they know that there will be new people coming. There were always people who were desperate, like I need to make money. Therapists who were like I just graduated and I'm looking at the amount of money that I owe and like I need clients, I need hours, I need something, and they will turn to a place like this because that's how you get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and. And the other big this was, this was, this was. It sounds petty, but this was a huge thing for me is that I would have when, when I was working with lot better, they would have their whole thing worked in, where if somebody from BetterHelp scheduled on to BetterHelp, then it would go to my Google calendar and that would shut off my Google calendar was also connected to the insurance company, so then that would be blocked off for the insurance company. However, it didn't work in reverse, so like if an insurance company client were to book an appointment at such and such time, then it wouldn't be taking off the better help, and then, you know, if somebody happened to try booking for the same time, then I'd have to let them know like hey, look, I already had, like you know, this done or this time filled. Unfortunately, I can't see you because I'm not.
Speaker 2:That is such an odd quirk to have in your system.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really odd. I don't think you're being petty about that, it's I support your hatred for this. Because I feel like there is a way to not have that happen, which then says that it is a choice to keep it like that yeah is what that implies to me yeah, and and and you know, as far as, like you know, like their, their support system.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to go too deep into it because I, I you know again, I don't want to break any confidentiality. However, I will say this is that I have gone through times where I did go through a time where I had a client that was inappropriate for better help, and so better help they do have in their agreement that this is not meant for like anything intense. This is not meant for anything like you know, like serious or like severe or like needed right now, that this is basically they're advertising themselves or they have in legal terms, basically this for like slight depression or slight anxiety.
Speaker 2:you know, like very right, but if I'm in a crisis on a good day, I don't read the terms and agreements right. So, like if I'm in a crisis, I'm definitely not going to read that right.
Speaker 1:So I I had a client that was linked to me and was completely inappropriate for BetterHelp services as a whole, and this person ended up threatening to find me and kill me. Oh okay, oh okay. And so I let BetterHelp know that. Hey look, you know this is what's going on. You know this person is inappropriate for this platform as a whole and this person is threatening to find me and kill me. The response that I got was well, let this person know that they're inappropriate for BetterHelp. Was well, let this person know that they're inappropriate for better help, and then, once you send them that, you let us know and then we'll take them off the platform.
Speaker 2:So we're just going to ignore the threat of murder.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:By someone who may not be in a really good mental state.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:Cool, cool, cool and we're're gonna ignore it. And then also the person who was threatened for murder. Um, I want you to go back and and let them know that engage with them again engage with them again. Let them know that, hey, you're not gonna get your way period, and I'm recommending, to better help, that they take you off the platform altogether.
Speaker 1:So yeah, okay that that that is the support that I I had gotten from better help support. Wow, I. I'm gonna close off problems with therapists with one last thing is we talked about this last week where the fcc find better help 7.8 million dollars and it was because of them selling off information to facebook, instagram, snapchat and all that one of the things in that that group that I was telling you about earlier, where you know we talk about better help and everything. A lot of therapists were actually really worried about our license.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:So that is something to kind of keep in mind. Is you know at least for me, if a company is being that shady with again A company is being that shady with again not not having a licensed therapist to begin with until like 2017, that they were selling off information, that they whether it was knowledge or not that they were working with other shady companies to have people re redirected to better help, and the fact that again, whether they know this or not, I think they know this Things like faithmindorg or com redirecting people to better help. To me, that shows that they don't care about the therapist, they don't care about the clients.
Speaker 2:No, to me, even just that, like all of those things, even like one or two of them combined, is enough to say it's like you were here for the money is the impression that you're giving, and then, when you just keep stacking it up, it's like I don't see how you can argue otherwise, when everything you have done up until this point shows this oh god. So this leads me to the second half of this.
Speaker 1:Uh show, uh the problems for clients because we haven't had enough problems already, right, right and, and you know, and here's the thing is that these are the people that that I really feel for for the most. Um, yeah, I, I do feel that, as a therapist, like you know, like um, we're really kind of getting screwed. But you know, the the most important person here is the people who are asking for help. So, starting off, you know, as I was kind of saying, basically with the clients, they're getting a subscription base, so they're paying $75 to $90 per session and they're able to see the therapist, let's say, four times a month, the therapist, let's say four times a month, and that they have unlimited access to, you know, like writing 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, is that it is either use it or lose. It. Is that it is either use it or lose it?
Speaker 1:No, but what if you're going on vacation?
Speaker 2:Use it or lose it. What if you're just in a period where, like, maybe you don't need to be coming as much?
Speaker 1:So okay the vacation, Okay the vacation. And I don't know factually if it is use it or lose it, or if they're able to say to BetterHelp like, hey, I'm going on vacation, Can we move it out a week or something like that. But I do know, like if they were like, let's say, I'm working with a client and we've pretty much taken care of like their depression or anything like that, and they want to kind of go biweekly. There are subscriptions that are biweekly Okay, there are subscriptions as like once a month.
Speaker 2:But you still have to set that ahead of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to set that ahead of time, so but yeah, I mean, mean you know again that that's. They do have things where it's like you know and try the first month for free and things like that, which that kind of gets back to uh guess where that money is coming from although it's better they're.
Speaker 2:They're teaching websites that the student pays for the first lesson but the teacher doesn't get any money. Yeah, the first lesson is free yeah, fuck that right, right. It's like no, even if it's, it's a free for everybody. The problem is is that then people are like, oh well, it's free, so like I can just kind of bop around a little bit and try out some people. It's like, yeah, but you've now taken up some of these valuable time and they didn't get paid for. That did you ever think about?
Speaker 1:that, oh god, so. So what? One of the things, like you know, due to the fact of therapists who you know, we're not getting a lot of money. You know, it's basically like trying to make ends meet. And so, if you're trying to make ends meet, guess how much money you have for learning different types of therapy.
Speaker 2:A lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, yeah a lot of zeros a lot, yeah, yeah, a lot of zero, nothing in front and and here's the problem, like is that learning different modes of therapy is not cheap at all, not even in the least. Which I always found funny is how, as a whole, like social workers are one of the lowest paid master's degree like jobs, but yet everything is for them to keep their license, for them to uh move forward is the most expensive things on the world. So so like different types of uh therapy, like I mean, you're, you're paying like thousands of dollars, so like for the training emdr.
Speaker 1:yeah, for the training, for the supervision after the training to be certified. So for example, like as of right now I am taking gotman training for couple therapy, it is 700 for level one and two, it's a thousand dollars for level three and then a thousand dollars for uh to be registered for the supervision and then supervision generally is about $200, $200, $250 per session with supervision and usually like that type of training calls for like 10 sessions. So that's another $2,500 just for the supervision.
Speaker 2:So you're looking at like five to six K right there. Okay, just to be certified in this.
Speaker 1:Just to be certified and that's just one type of therapy. Yeah, which? Okay, that wouldn't be so bad if all you needed was one type of therapy.
Speaker 2:But you don't.
Speaker 1:But you don't, because there are 8 billion people on this planet right now and everybody, you know we're different, so we're going to take in things differently. We're going to, you know, we're going to need, have different needs and things like that. So, like you know, before I get attacked by the therapist community, things like the very first thing that I had ever learned was cognitive behavioral therapy is to look at your thoughts and see if there are better ways of looking at it. And if you're talking about somebody 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 that and, you know, think a little bit different. Maybe the guy just didn't realize that, you know, you weren't his.
Speaker 1:Oh my god no, like, yeah, no so like I mean, there there is like um, cognitive processing therapy, which is a branch of kind of behavioral therapy therapy that is more appropriate for, like trauma. It was actually CBT that was designed for trauma, which is looking at the beliefs that were formed from trauma rather than looking at the thoughts of what could have been. You know so. So you know you do need, as a therapist, you do need multiple types of therapy in order to be able to provide the best you know help for for your clients. So one of the big things is is that you're now having therapists who are completely unapparent or unprepared. You're having therapists who has that one mode of training, if any mode of training, and they're just kind of taking a shot in the dark and there's no possibility for them to continue getting trained.
Speaker 1:Now. Better help, I will say they do have, like you know, like these little training modules which you know like, think of it this way, like we, we've all had this in college. You know, especially nowadays, where it was. Just like you know, like the, the training modules, like you know, like the, the professor who was too lazy to you know, really take or teach class and and just threw up, like you know, you, you go through these 14 modules one per week and then you turned in an assignment and then you got a grade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ones where it's like learn how to do this amazing thing in just three hours. It's like no, there are things you can learn to do in three hours, Like there are definitely courses and certificates that it's short enough and sweet enough that you can just like go through it and done. But I think a lot of this stuff there's a lot of theory that you need to absorb. There's a lot of examples that you need to absorb. There may be some questions that you work through so that you understand how this fits and how it doesn't. That's not a A little online quiz thing that you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a time and place for those, and this is not it.
Speaker 2:Now I'm just imagining a whole bunch of therapists who have basically done like the free version of Coursera. That's what they're working off of, and that is a terrifying image, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the thing is, you, you know, like rightfully so, uh, just because you took a better help, uh, cbt course doesn't mean you're, you know, certified no no, you might have basic understanding of it uh, at least that's what I would imagine, but you know, as far as actually fully understanding it, no, yeah, and I mean, when it comes to my mental health, like I, I this is one of those things where cheapness is not going to be better no, no, there are.
Speaker 2:there are a lot of things in life where the cheapest option is not only not the 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 your money because you're potentially getting bad advice that's not even accurate.
Speaker 1: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 is definitely 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 therapists is that they're having a caseload of like 60, 70 people, uh, just to make ends meet. And you know again, if you are a therapist for for trying to trying to get your the max income from better help, and you're working 40 hours, you can do 45 hours, you can do 50, 80 hours a week, um, but just to do even 40 hours, that's yeah, way too much. But if you're having like 75 clients you know in your caseload, let me ask you like, you know, like, if over a month you know and I'm being generous here If over a month you met 75 different people, how many of those stories are you actually going to remember?
Speaker 2:Zero. I mean, I can tell you, even from my experience as a freelancer like because of the way I work, where I have, like different clients who are sending me different projects for translation. They all have different style guides and you will hit that moment where sometimes, even though it's a project you've been working on for years, you just like you're like what am I capitalizing here? Like, what set of punctuation rules do we follow here? Because it's the fourth time today that I've had to switch mentally between, like, what are we using what you know? What rules are we following here? Versus not following there? Because there are there are all sorts of like weird capitalization and grammar rules that apply to video games that don't apply to other things, and yeah, that's how mistakes get made. And then the project manager writes you back and it's like what happened?
Speaker 1:you're like, you see, you know, one of the things I I remember, like in in learning about therapy itself, is that one of the best things that you can do to really form a rapport with somebody is, you know, being able to recall something back from like last session. You know, oh, I remember last session that you were talking about such and such like. It gives it, you know, it gives that person like and and rightfully so Like if, if you know.
Speaker 1:My therapist is like oh yeah, you know, I remember you were talking that person, and rightfully so. My therapist is like oh yeah, I remember you were talking about so-and-so, and especially if you call them out by name or something like that, it gives that okay, I feel a closer connection, I can be able to say things, as opposed to if you're going through 75 clients in a week.
Speaker 2:You don't remember that, you don't remember their names yeah, you know, and I mean like.
Speaker 1:So there are times where, like you know, like, uh, that I am meeting with the client for the second time and especially, you know, I might have to look at, you know like, I'll look at their notes, their notes from the previous week, just to kind of jog my memory. Oh, okay, I remember who I'm going to be working with here in a second. If you're already working 40 hours just seeing clients, chances are you're probably not going to be taking notes, you're probably not going to have something there, because from my experience you didn't have to turn in notes. You know you could write notes, but if you're working with the client again, if you're already doing 40 hours, you're not going to put another 10 hours of, you know, like, writing out notes no, because that's unpaid work at that point right and so so it's.
Speaker 1:You're kind of taking away that personal touch from the therapist because they're you know they're going through so many people and also, if a therapist is going through you know 10 hours a day, just to you know be able to make sure that they do hit that 40 hours, to you know be able to make sure that they do hit that 40 hours and they're working 50 hours, monday through Fridays, 10 hours a day, and you are client number Cause you got to figure with 10 hours a day like 10 actual hours.
Speaker 2:My God you're actually seeing 15 clients. Yeah, or or. I'm sorry about 12.
Speaker 1:seeing 15 clients, yeah, or or. I'm sorry about 12 or 13 clients.
Speaker 2:Even still like if you're just that one at the very end.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2: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 here talking to you who I?
Speaker 1:really don't care about at the moment. Well, you know, okay, if it was just peeing and pooping, or well, not pooping, but if it was just having to get up and go to the bathroom real quick, you know, like I've done that, excuse myself, like I'm really sorry, I have to go. Excuse myself Like I'm really sorry, I have to go to Beth. Yeah, that's one thing, but after like six, seven, if your client number eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, that therapist is mentally drained.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1: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, or if you were talking about something that had really hit you hard, you know, throughout the week and your client, your, your therapist, is just there. Oh my god, I cannot wait to go. I'm so fucking done with this shit. You know like yeah, burnout is a thing.
Speaker 2:Quality care right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is not exactly. You're not going to get exactly the most quality of care and your therapist is not going to be, you know, fully, there by the end of the day. Yeah, so this is going to cause a lot of problems as far as, like you know, there by the end of 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 the things I had seen from a client or an ex-client who posted up on tiktok about how they went through three different therapists within a matter of two months and one of the reasons why they went to therapy was for abandonment issue.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And if you, if you have a therapist who is working 40, 50 hours a week, guess how quickly their, their burnout rate is going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're the newest client or if you're kind of a weird time, you're the one that gets cut.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and well, and on top of that, like again you know therapists who are, you know, working that amount of time, they're going to eventually just say like, okay, I can't deal with this shit anymore. Yeah, I'm working, you know, 50 hours a week and I'm barely able to get by. And they quit Better Help, and now that person's moving on to the next therapist.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And I mean again if you're having therapists working 50 hours a week, well, the burnouts can happen pretty quickly. 50 hours a week, well, the burnouts can happen pretty quickly. So you know again, you know this person who is going to therapy for abandonment. Not only you know was this person saying about how therapists would leave and that she would have to get rematched. She also talked about how therapists would just cut, you know, and they would just say okay, it's eight o'clock. You know what I can't do anymore and just like skip out of the sessions.
Speaker 2:It's not good, but like yeah, that's what happens when you're overworked. Is at some point you crack and you're like I can't Right, I don't care. At this point, Like, I'm done.
Speaker 1:You know like it's. It's funny. Um, I I saw on, you know like again being being on facebook, like I, I'm in like a lot of therapy 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 point where anytime that a client calls out or misses an appointment, I feel excited. And that's what burnout feels like. It's when you're actually like, oh my God, I just can't deal with it. It's just completely draining.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you as a person, you're going to probably cut out, you're probably going to leave, and now this person is left without a therapist. And you know, like I mean, if they're going through that, if that's their first view of therapy, it's. You know therapy as a whole is is a hard thing. And I tell a lot of people like you know, like that, I congratulate a lot of people for taking that first step, because just asking for help is is hard as hell. And if your first experience in therapy is somebody who is not listening to you and who's cutting out all the time, you know first impressions, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it takes a lot for some people to get the therapy and then that's what you meet and it's like we'll see. I knew all along that this was bullshit. Like why did I waste my money coming here and now you've lost that person completely? Now trying to ever get them to go back will be so much harder because they got burned by this. And it's different to the burnout versus somebody retiring, because when it's retiring you know you have like a little bit of forewarning, like hey, I'm going to be leaving soon, so let's kind of make a plan for where you're going to go and what you're going to do. And can I recommend you to somebody else? And this is just like rug pulled out from under your feet. I'm gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that that that was the thing was that this person was saying with one of their therapists was that they had a session with the therapist and then a couple of weeks later, or like a couple of days later, they get a email from better help saying, hey, your therapist just left, we're going to rematch you with somebody else. And it's just like and again, this person was going to therapy for abandonment issues- yeah.
Speaker 1:So so I mean, you're probably going to the worse in the symptoms and you know another way that I feel that BetterHelp is promoting symptoms is a lot of things kind of come down to like codependency. You know like um, uh, we talk a lot about like um attachment styles, and you know if you're talking about like an anxious or wait, wait, hold on.
Speaker 2:Is avoidant anxious or anxious avoid? Is that like a real thing?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, I mean there there's. So there's secure, unsecure and anxious. I'm just going to double check.
Speaker 2:Sorry, this is a tangent, but like I see this come up on the internet all the time and I know that half of it is not true, because this is the internet we're talking about, but I just wasn't sure which half.
Speaker 1:Secure, anxious, avoiding and disorganized.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've never heard about disorganized before so okay, so, uh, so yeah, um, uh, I guess that that can be unsecure as well. So you know and and that's kind of the thing is that you know, with attachment styles, like you know, like that's one of the things is that if you have, you know, like an anxious, you know like attachment, somebody with anxious attachment is going to constantly need you know that being told that things are going to be okay, that you're okay, being told that things are going to be okay, that you're okay, which maybe at the beginning, hearing that from your therapist is going to feel good, but you know, over time, that's something that we can work on, so that way you're not needing that all the time. But also, like the other thing is is that you are having somebody with 24, 24, seven access to therapists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely going to help.
Speaker 1:They're. They're getting right to the therapist, and and again this you know, the therapist has to provide back within a certain amount of time, Unless it's the weekend. You're you're promoting codependency and that's one of the things is that we're trying to work with people to get them away from having to constantly rely on somebody else. Part of the whole thing is with therapy is self-empowerment being able to, you know, have that person do something and and feel like, holy shit, I can do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you're giving access to that therapist and with that expectation that they're going to respond back to you right away, it's basically leaving the heroin addict in the room with a bunch of heroin and saying, okay, just stay away from it and just don't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at some point they're going to cave.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, with all that being said, I'm going to take over this time, for where do we go from here?
Speaker 2:I mean, it makes it you're the one who's actually experienced this, so I feel like you're maybe a little more qualified.
Speaker 1:As far as therapy goes, I think that BetterHelp was good in the fact that they did introduce and that they did make it available for online therapy. Today, there are a lot of insurance companies that will pay for online therapy. Today there are a lot of insurance companies that will pay for online therapy. There are a lot of EAPs employee-assisted programs that allows people to go online and get therapy. The therapists are getting paid a hell of a lot better. They're not taking on like such a large caseload. The client is getting more experience therapy, so there are sources of online therapy that are way, way better than BetterHelp.
Speaker 2:That's good to know.
Speaker 1:And you know this is one of those things where I understand that that therapy is expensive.
Speaker 1:But again, as we kind of talked about before, there's a reason for that, you know it's.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're talking about your own mental health, you don't want somebody who only knows one type of therapy, want somebody who only knows one type of therapy.
Speaker 1:And again, you know, like, you know, in my opinion, something like CBT is not going to be helpful for somebody who's going through trauma, because you know you can't think in a more you know, quote, unquote realistic way of you know, sexual assault, because what happened is real to begin with. You know, like, but there are ways that you're able to look at the beliefs that are formed from it. You know, like, as far as trust, intimacy, self-esteem, security and power control, you know, and that's what cognitive processing therapy kind of goes into is looking at how we have those things and how finding that medium ground instead of going from, rather than sitting there and saying that nobody can be trusted. You know there's no one-size-fits-all, and again, that gives the therapist opportunities to see different or have different ways of going through therapy and giving different practices. I think that you know, unfortunately. You know, and if it really comes down to it, I know with myself I have a couple spots open for low-income therapy.
Speaker 2:I know many people do. I've seen this idea of a sliding pay scale before, where it's, like you know, within reason. I understand that some people truly may not have the budget for what this is worth, and so, for you specifically, we can work with this. I think many people, many therapists, would be open to that yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1:So I mean, you know, like I know, when I was going through a lot and and didn't have money, um, yeah, like I have money now, uh, my my therapist, uh, you know he lowered his price down, uh a lot just to be able to like accommodate, um, and I do the same thing for you know, like I said, I have a couple slots, uh, for people with low income. Uh, you know therapy and uh, so if you are looking for low income therapy, you can go on to psychology today and you're able to find, you know, like a therapist with a sliding scale. Okay, so there are options out there. You know, if price is the big thing, so, basically, where do we go from here?
Speaker 2:is we already have all of the necessary things in place?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, it's just being able to access them. And again, talking to insurance company, talking to your job, talking to looking up on psychology, today there are different ways of being able to, uh, access these resources. And for therapists, um, you know, I would say stay the fuck away from better help. And that's again, that's my opinion. But yeah, my opinion is stay the fuck away from better help.
Speaker 2:I support this.
Speaker 1:So, with all that being said, where would you put this on our scale of toxicity? Would you say that this is a green potato? Uh, where you can just scrape off the green and it's okay? Uh, death cap mushroom, where you have a 50 50 shot of uh getting killed? Or would you say that this is an antifreeze?
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to go with antifreeze because I hate BetterHelp. I had an idea that they were kind of slimy before from stuff that you had said and stuff I'd kind of seen. It also tends to be one of those things that like when you see the same company pop up over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and ads over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and adds that to me is a red flag that you're having to constantly advertise all the time, all these different people all over the place. It's weird when it's a constant thing. I also think that they get this because they have made it really clear, to my mind, that they only care about money. I mean, see the fact that they sold people's private data to social media companies there are laws against this and the fact that they got slapped with a little fine. That's the only thing that has stopped them, but they did it. Somebody approved that and somebody else was. Somebody had the idea, somebody approved it and they went through with it and they didn't seem to think that there was any issue with that.
Speaker 2:I desperately want to like them because I love the idea of online therapy. I love the idea of therapists being able to work freelance and, as you said, pick and choose your hours and how you want to do things and work around your existing schedule. As a fellow freelancer, I get it, but I feel like better help is just like the worst of everything, like it's bad for the patients. They're more likely to get low quality care while still paying quite a bit of money. It's bad for therapists because they're being pushed to work way too much, which in turn, is then bad for the patients. And it's bad for therapy as a whole because it just cheapens the whole experience and makes people not take it seriously and increases the likelihood that people are going to have bad experiences either patients having therapists who don't care or therapists being like I have all these patients and they just keep canceling and I'm stressed and I'm overworked and I'm out. Like everyone loses with BetterHelp, except BetterHelp, who takes all your money and spends it on ads.
Speaker 1:I will agree. I will agree. I think that the I was actually thinking about this me of maybe even downing it to jello with sprinkle antifreeze, just because of the fact that better help brought the ability of therapy to come online.
Speaker 2:This is true and that is a really important thing, and I love this, that we have it.
Speaker 1:But I think that 2020 would have done that too.
Speaker 2: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 stuff too, because we had there was all sorts of stuff like online classes and stuff that we kind of we were looking at, and then the pandemic people were like oh no, let's just keep it this way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so, yeah, I'm going with full-fledged antifreeze.
Speaker 2:I think they deserve it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they pretty much deserve it. So if you have any thoughts or if you're a therapist yourself and you have stories of better help, let us know. At toxic, at awesome life skills dot com.
Speaker 2:However, if you are better help and you are one of their lawyers, you don't need to contact us.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. If you are a lawyer of BetterHelp, you can contact us on our other email of gofuckyourself at fuckyoucom.
Speaker 2:We need this email now.
Speaker 1:Allegedly yeah. You can follow us on Instagram, Blue Sky and Facebook, and we're looking forward to seeing you all next week. Until then, I've been Chris Verpatchit, LCSW.
Speaker 2:And I've been Lindsay McLean.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.
