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How to Sign up with Online-therapy.com
To get started with online-therapy.com is very easy. The process begins with a condition identification. As soon as you hit the signup button, you are presented with a page that aims to ascertain what you need assistance with. Some of the options that are listed include:
- Depression
- PTSD
- Sleep or insomnia
- Weight loss
- Social anxiety
- Self-esteem
- OCD
- Health anxiety
- Stress
Note that it is possible for a user to select as many of these as are applicable. The next step is to indicate your preferences. The first of these speaks to your gender requirements. You can choose whether you’d prefer a male or a female therapist. If you are unsure or if it does not matter, you can indicate these options as well.
A big part of the service delivery is live chat sessions, and you can select the service delivery method that is most appealing to you. The options given are text chat sessions, voice-only chat, and video /live sessions. If you are uncertain, you may also indicate this.
Next is an easy-to-follow, you indicate how you found out about the site, and the options listed here include YouTube, a therapist, social media platforms, or via a search engine. The personal information that is needed to create your account comes next. These include your name or alias, your location, email address, and your desired password. You are also required to check a box that indicates that you are over 18 years old and that you accept the site’s privacy policy that you can access and read at your leisure.
After doing this, your free account is then created. Of course, to access all the features available, a paid, premium subscription is needed.
Screening Process for online therapy
There is a high level of trust that someone who is being treated must be able to have in a therapist. If someone is administering treatment for those who may be struggling with mental health, then that person most confidently is able to elicit the necessary information and make the right decisions in helping treatment recipients to achieve their mental health goals.
Before starting with online-therapy.com, a professional has to register as a counselor on the website, that person must prove that this is something that falls within his/her realm of abilities. To this end, online-therapy.com has a set of requirements that are necessary.
First, all therapists are required to have either an MA, MS, Psy, MSW or a Ph.D. These qualifications must be in a relevant mental therapy discipline such as clinical psychology or counseling social work. Additionally, the potential candidate must be licensed by the applicable state board and should not have had any disciplinary actions on their record in the last 10 years.
Areas of Treatment Offered by Online-therapy.com
Online-therapy.com aims to offer a wide range of possible treatments to those who are struggling with various issues. This is the reason that this selection process of potential disorders during signup consists of such an extensive list, from which people can choose multiple conditions. The full list of things that you can get assistance with at online-therapy.com are:
- Borderline personality
- Children and teens
- Chronic pain
- Postnatal depression
- Divorce
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food disorders
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Family issues
- Panic attacks
- Sleep or insomnia
- Social anxiety
- Stress
- Weight loss
- ADHD and attention issues
- Adoption
- Mental health problems/Mental health challenges
- Agoraphobia
- Alzheimer’s
- Asperger syndrome
- GAD
- Grief
- Addiction
- Anger management
- Depression
- Health anxiety
- OCD
- Autism
- Bipolar disorder
- Procrastination
- PTSD
- Relationship issues
- Mental health matters/Mental health care
- Self-esteem
- Marriage issues
- Parenting
- Phobias
- Sex & Sexuality
- Speech anxiety
- Couples Therapy
During the signup process, you can also select “other,” if the condition that you want assistance with is not present in the list.
Session Types Offered
There are different ways in which a person who is receiving counseling services can communicate with the assigned licensed therapist during the process. The first is the personal worksheet. While it is completed by the customer, the therapist offers the necessary support in ensuring that it is completed successfully and adequately. It then forms a strong basis for the approach that is used in the treatment plan.
Depending on the subscription plan that you have activated, you could potentially have access to the live session, video, and chat functionality. The subscription that you choose determines whether you get one or two of these sessions per week. They last for 45 minutes, and they capture the interactive element that is needed in the administration of successful therapy online.
The top-tier standard and premium subscriptions also offer unlimited text messages, which can allow the service user is to feel as if the board-certified counselor cares and is consistently intends to provide the kind of treatment that is necessary.
While these don’t fall under the category of interactive sessions, calming activities such as yoga and meditation can always be used to keep yourself centered. Additionally, you are given a personal therapist that you can use to keep track of whatever you see fit.
In the description of the signup process, you may have noticed that you are given the ability to select a preference for a phone or video therapy. Be that as it may, none of these things are currently offered by online-therapy.com. However, it is something that the site plans to launch, so you can expect that these functionalities should show up in the future.
How to Schedule a Session
The first point to note here is that the counselors on online-therapy.com are available Monday through Friday. This can be an inconvenience to some who prefer weekend sessions for online counseling with their therapists, but at least online-therapy.com is kind enough to let users know what the availability is like upfront.
While you can get assistance from the customer service team around the clock, a licensed therapist is only available for eight hours per day. Of course, the site caters to multiple locales, which means that scheduling around time zone differences can present a challenge. To this end, online-therapy.com aims to place you with a therapist who is suitable based on your time zone.
When you create your account and every time you log in, you are taken to the dashboard area where you can see various information and access controls. One of these is a live chat option that you can use to schedule your time.
Online-therapy.com Pricing and Privacy Policy Review
To ensure that customers create an account with a plan that is most appropriate to their financial needs and capabilities, online-therapy.com offers four pricing tiers for people to choose from while purchasing their services.
The first is a free plan platform. This is the default plan that a person is placed on upon the creation of a new account. It has the most limited set of features, which include worksheets, a journal, an activity plan, access to the yoga and meditation videos sessions, and some online therapy.
The basic plan platform is next, and it is currently $39.95 per week. The plan offers the three areas of functionality highlighted in the free plan of therapy service, but there is also the addition of daily therapist feedback/professional counselors’ feedback from Monday to Friday.
The third option is this standard plan platform, and this currently goes for $47.96 weekly. All features of the basic plan are available here, but there is also a single live chat session with a therapist weekly, and support is also offered via text message.
Finally, there is the premium plan, which offers the maximum amount of support that online-therapy.com can give. All functionality provided in the standard plan is present here. However, there are two sessions with your therapist per week, and express replies to messages are offered. The cost of this plan is currently $63.96 weekly.
Online-therapy.com has a privacy policy that you must accept before started with Online-therapy.com your membership can be created. You can read this at the signup step, or you can scroll to the bottom of any page and select the link to it. At the time of writing, the policy was last updated on January 23, 2020. The information that is included in the policy describes how online-therapy.com operates where the collection, use, and disclosure of your data is concerned.
Additionally, there is information on how the law protects you and the privacy rights that you have.
Customer Support
There is a comprehensive customer support offering available on the site. You can access this in two ways. First, you can use the FAQ section to find answers to the questions that others may have asked before you that can assist you. Thankfully, this is a wholly indexed offering, which means that it is searchable.
There is also the help center, which you can use to reach out to the customer support team 24 hours daily via live chat or email. The email response SLA is currently 24 hours.
For Emergency Situations
If you are in a mental health crisis, it is important to seek immediate help. Online therapy can be a great resource for ongoing mental health care, but it is not appropriate for immediate crisis situations.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or plans, or if you are feeling like you might harm yourself or others, please call 911 immediately. You can also reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for free and confidential support.
Here are some other resources that can help if you are in crisis:
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
- The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): 1-800-950-NAMI (6264)
- SAMSA.gov
Please remember that you are not alone, and there is help available. If you are in crisis, please reach out for support.
