Hey Everyone,

My name is Wenyang Ming. I don't know what your story is, but you've managed to stumble across this petition, so I guess I'll tell you a bit about mine. I've been with BetterHelp for about a few months now, but I've been in therapy for probably around 4 years now. It's been a really hard journey, and working on my own mental health has been the most challenging, but yet significant thing that has happened ever since the incident in high school were I got bullied and received no help from anyone, including staff when I reported it. 

After going from a couple of therapists in person, to going to talkspace, I quickly went to betterhelp since they offer a comprehensive questionnaire containing your story and what you would like out of a therapist. 

However, a big issue is that the amount of time you get per session is only 30-45 minutes, and you can only book one session per week based on the therapist's availability.

I don't know about you and what your story is, but for my needs in therapy, 30 minutes is not enough. On an average day, we may start a session by telling our therapist how we feel and how our week's been. Then, work on our therapy goals, to which we would have only so much time left (and this takes a long time to process). Sometimes, we have bad days where we need to talk about it in order to distress. Nonetheless, I've always found that the time we have to spend with our therapists is not enough and I'd like to take some action as after so many years and time in therapy, I'd like to get what I need, but also help anyone else who may feel the same. 

What I have to propose to BetterHelp Product Management:

1. either to allow multiple bookings,
2. increase the session an individual would like to have with their therapist from the range of 30-45 minutes to at least 60 minutes
3. offer a separate membership for those who would like to just have an extra call with their therapist

If you're concerned as to if this is doable, therapists may be overworked, or less people would be able to access therapy, let me explain to you why this is not at all the case. BetterHelp is a 100% online therapy platform that has over 14,000 therapists as of April 20, 2022. Furthermore, being a privately based company in Silicon Valley, they take a cut from the amount therapists make, making costs not a big issue. Moreover, at the moment, a 30-45 minute session is offered each week while users can message their therapist 24/7 to which therapists will respond once or twice a day during weekdays. Thus, making the time of each patient interaction very low, allowing therapists to take on more clients at once, and our petition to increase the amount of time per session to be more pragmatic. 

Talkspace (located in NYC), one of BetterHelp's main competitors already have the third option I'm proposing -- purchase extra sessions/calls with their therapists. So, if you want to spend 60 minutes with your therapist, you can go ahead and do it by purchasing 2 credits (as of last time I remember each credit was worth 30 minutes on TS). To be clear, I am NOT saying to offer longer session times for FREE, but another paid option.

Once we get enough traction/votes, we could tag BetterHelp on social media (i.e. twitter) or email upper management. On the other hand, if you've been using BetterHelp, Talkspace, or have been seeking mental health support, I'd love to hear your story and what you'd have to say.

I wish you with the best of luck wherever you are in your journey of healing and recovery :)

I'm more than interested in hearing your ideas if you have any. Feel free to contact me at my email: wenyangming@rocketmail.com, or on insta @wenm33