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*Privacy Not Included review: Pride Counseling
foundation.mozilla.orgPride Counseling, owned by BetterHelp (see our review of BetterHelp), provides therapy services targeted at members of the LGBTQ+ community. Costs for the Pride Counseling service run around $60 - $90 per week depending on your location (some locations might be higher) and Wirecutter noted in 2021 they "found some of the company’s practices to be predatory." Users will then be matched with a therapist Pride Counseling says are licensed and have some experience with the LGBTQ+ community, although there is no way to guarantee your therapist will be LGBTQ themselves. Conversations with therapists can happen in a number of ways -- text messages, live chats, phone conversations, or video calls.
I never said it didn’t bother me, I said I understood why they’re advertising a bunch this time of year and that it didn’t bother me as much as others. You also see a lot of alcohol ads this time of year, those bother me deeply.
Also:
Providing a mental health service is expensive.
Should such a thing be provided to the people by a government and funded via taxes? Yes.
Should we be pushing our government to provide such a service? Yes.
Is having such a service in the meantime a good thing? Yes.
Here in the US calling a suicide hotline is free, but mental health services are horrendously expensive even with health insurance. And getting an appointment is a whole other can of worms that’s also a nightmare. The last time I tried I was scheduled 8 months out for one that took my insurance so it was only going to cost me $250 per session instead of “we’ll figure that out when you get here”. They cancelled my appointment a month before it was supposed to happen.
I’ve had and have known many others that have had the unfortunate experience of trying to seek therapy in the US. It’s very dependent on where you are, what insurance you have, how updated the list of providers that accept your insurance is, and whether or not the ones in your area are even taking new patients.
In my experience, Better Help doesn’t provide a worthwhile service. They charge around $300/mo and will postpone and cancel your appointments so you end up getting in one, maybe two, appointments in a month, but with the added stress of needing to work your schedule around their shitty time management. My partner tried them out for a couple months out of desperation at the lack of local therapists who take our insurance and it was a net negative for her.
Sorry to hear that it went poorly for you two, the only 2 people I’ve known who have used their services had a good (or at least better than local) experience with them.