Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that can help fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back in line.

Today I'm talking about online therapy.

I hear from so many people who have questions about how it works, whether it's as helpful as

in-person therapy, and the best way to find an online therapist. So today I'm going to tell you

what you need to know about online therapy, how to get the most from it, and when you

should opt for in-person therapy instead. But first, I just want to explain some of my personal

experiences with online therapy. I spent most of my career providing face-to-face therapy

in an office. When I became an author, I didn't have time to be a full-time therapist anymore,

so I offered some mental strength coaching, which often took place over the phone or via messaging. I also tested a lot of the

online therapy services. A few years ago, very well mine asked me to test the major online

therapy services as sort of a mystery shopper. At the time, I was a freelance writer for the site,

and I wasn't yet the editor-in-chief. So I took several months to personally test all the big

therapy sites that we had available then, which were the sites like Talkspace and BetterHelp.

And I'm really glad that I did that because I learned a lot about what it's like to talk to a

therapist via text messaging

or how video chatting with a therapist is different from talking to someone in person.

The pandemic definitely made online therapy much more mainstream, so it's grown over the years.

And the good news is it's also made insurance companies recognize that online therapy is a

legitimate way for people to get

help. Some of the sites have expanded into offering additional services, like psychiatry. So if you're

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