What are some pros and cons to BetterHelp?
By Sophie Smith
Ba&Sc in Honours Cognitive Science, McGill University, Canada | October 2023
Reviewed by Alexandre Lemyre, Ph.D.
If you’ve listened to a podcast within the past year, you’ve probably heard of BetterHelp, an online therapy platform founded in 2013. It boasts over 24,000 licensed therapists and has facilitated more than 202 million messages, live chats, calls, and video sessions. With a claimed reach of aiding over 2.7 million individuals, BetterHelp offers therapy services through computers, smartphones, and tablets, offering anonymity if desired. BetterHelp’s sign-up involves a questionnaire guiding therapist pairing based on user preferences.
Pros of BetterHelp encompass easy access to licensed therapists, the ability to remain anonymous, unlimited messaging, easy therapist changes, a user-friendly app and website, and affordability in comparison to in-person therapy. Positive user reviews commend BetterHelp’s affordability and accessibility, though some report unsatisfactory therapist experiences. Drawbacks include the absence of psychiatrists for prescription purposes, the inability to diagnose conditions, and potential lack of insurance coverage. The platform doesn’t grant users therapist selection, barring switches. Therefore, it can be difficult for the patient to ensure their practitioner is a good fit for them. Furthermore, BetterHelp is unsuitable for court-ordered therapy and challenges users with inconsistent internet access or no private therapy space. Moreover, there have been controversies regarding data breaches and influencer affiliations. The app itself is not privy to the same health data privacy laws as therapists, and it has already sold patients usage data to organizations such as Facebook.
Studies suggest that videoconference-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy can yield comparable benefits to in-person therapy, particularly for issues like depression and anxiety. However, these studies were conducted in standardized contexts. Variables such as the therapists’ training, the type of psychological difficulty being treated, the type of treatment offered, and the number of therapy sessions were all tightly controlled. In contrast, BetterHelp hosts therapists with different training, who offer different types of support, for varying numbers of sessions. Thus, the results of video conference-delivered therapy in extant studies do not automatically translate to BetterHelp.
We could find a single study that aimed at testing Betterhelp, showing positive treatment outcomes on depression symptoms. However, this result should be viewed as preliminary since the study did not include a control group and because the researchers were tied to the company. It is interesting to note that more research has been conducted on TalkSpace, a platform which offers similar services to BetterHelp.
For more information on BetterHelp, see this article on PsychCentral
The content of this article was last updated on October 8, 2023
