Couples Therapy Gets Ushered Into The Modern Age With New Therapy App Called Talkspace

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Couples Therapy Gets Ushered Into The Modern Age With New Therapy App Called Talkspace

AH Talkspace-1

In an age of instant messaging, emails, delivery of food via smartwatches and blazing fast internet, just about everything we consume on a daily basis needs to be accessible in light speed time because that’s what we’re used to. One might hardly think of couples therapy as being something that should or would fit into these parameters but that is exactly what Talkspace, a company and app available via Android and iOS, is doing for normal, everyday couples who may be hitting a rough patch in a relationship and need to talk it out but may be hindered by the constraints of their fast paced lives.

Now initially my first thought is that if any couple is having problems to the point where they may be considering couples therapy, you should probably make time to get things hashed out and fix the issue(s) before it has enough time to fester and grow into some enormous, ugly, and damaging problem that can seriously hurt the relationship. Things aren’t so black and white though. With the way things are today even little things like simple communication, the “I love you’s” and the quick messages expressing feelings or just going over what to have for dinner are all handled remotely via messages. It isn’t always because we want to , but rather just because it’s what fits into our schedules, and if people aren’t together any sort of communication is still better than none at all. Thinking of it that way Talkspace is a service that actually makes some sense as it gives people a solution to a problem they may have while still allowing each party member to do what they normally do on any given day.

There are some caveats to a solution like Talkspace as opposed to going to a therapist and talking things out in person(assuming you and your significant other aren’t the type to just work through things on your own)like a much less expensive alternative to the hourly rates of a therapist you would meet with physically. As Natt Garun from The Next Web points out, online therapy using an app such as Talkspace also eliminates any form of seeing visually how the other person may actually feel. Sometimes we can say one thing and mean another. In a couples therapy session in person however anything you say can be accompanied by slight visual queues and little facial expressions. Your feelings are more accessible and thus it could be easier to fix problems. Your therapist also may have an easier time being able to control the flow of the session because their job is to come between you, your significant other, and any unneeded conflict.

This sort of situation isn’t necessarily as easily doable via messaging as there’s no way to stop one person from talking over the other in a group messaging chat. There’s also the factor of time, which is one thing to take into consideration with something like Talkspace. Having a group therapy chat session as opposed to a session in person could take considerably longer. If you’re ok with some of these details, then mayhap you should give Talkspace a try. The app lets you match up with a network of over 200 licensed therapists, with plans that start as low as $19 a week or $25 a week for unlimited chatting, or even $29 for a 30-minute video chat session. You can grab the app from the Play Store if this is a possible solution for you.