so far, not impressed.
sign up has you go through a whole slew of questions, many of which, at least for me, don’t have a definitive answer, or the answers they provide don’t really apply or aren’t quite right. on it’s own though, that’s not a deal breaker, i mean i get it, you have to start somewhere, right?
the part that kind of soured it for me at the start is how after spending a good 20 minutes answering questions, you are then hit with the payment screen. at this point you’re invested, you’ve committed time to answer truthfully and from the heart, at least for me i was feeling pretty vulnerable… so when the payment option comes up it felt like a slap in the face.
i am not trying to say it should be free or anything like that, far from it. it’s just the way that the site does it makes it feel predatory almost.
the billing model is weird. they give you the weekly price, but then say it’s billed every 4 weeks, so why not just make it a monthly price? there are a metric fuckton of youtubers pushing this platform right now so discount codes are abundant. i chose a fellow canadian i really like as my referrer, thanks @Julie Nolke! got a few bucks off, so in the end just shy of 400 CAD for the month.
Once in the platform, you need to answer more questions, and then wait for a match to a therapist. they say it could take 24/48 hours, but i was matched in just about an hour or so.
unfortunately, the person i was matched to was about to go on holiday or something? so their first availability is only next week. ehhhhh…..
so remember the weird billing model? if that’s a 2 way street, then i am now paying 1 week to wait. really?
anyhow, we’ll see how this works out. in the meantime i am checking out the rest of the platform. yesterday i explored the journaling system which allows you to write whatever you want, they offer various prompts to help inspire you or get you started. you can attach a feeling to the entry and you also have the option to share it with your therapist. seems pretty well thought out and has all the functions and features you could expect. i made an entry, but decided not to share it with my therapist just yet, i’m not even certain i will stay with this one and wait the week. apparently one of the features of better help is that you can change any time, so maybe i’ll try that.