all, not enough help. and it's about what happens when tech companies filled the void that was having like 5 or 6 panic attacks a day. i started feeling really overwhelmed by that. i started trying to call normal therapist that wasn't working. i couldn't find anyone. nobody had time and may be many if need be, became such a library that i was with these to see it. and then that was when, when he was like, okay, i need to talk to someone like i need an expert on and whatever is having to integrate. the mental health crisis meets the gig economy coming up on this edition of business beyond. we just heard from joe on diego, we're not showing their faces or using their real names. but the stories are telling are incredibly common. according to the global burden of disease study, there are a 1000000000 people living with a mental health disorder right now. one an age of us. most people don't receive

effective care even in rich countries with good social safety nets. jose and american living in berlin. after getting nowhere in the search for a therapist, one night his mental health seriously deteriorates it. i was scared about how the night was going to end. the crisis lines, even though they claimed a 20 for hours. there's one for each individual district in berlin and not old man 20 for hours. and they don't say that anywhere on the website. so i sent my to our cause dialing every single lines in berlin. just let it ring for multiple times until i eventually figured out that it was quite spag line. that was, that was man 24 hours a day and got through to somebody there who is insanely on helpful. the day after his experience with the crisis hotline, joe went to see his regular doctor who recognized he was in danger. and foss talked to him into the mental health care system. when i finally got him to see her, she um, basically just looked at me on his like the okay,

uh, anti depressants for 2 years. i want you to go to a um, a distrust of the underside. so like a close um like institution where you can't leave for 2 weeks. um and that's it. and i'm like, jesus, you've talked to me for 3 minutes. like that's a radical step that she's like, yeah, but this is what i recommend. i'm like, okay, well i need more information. what are these drugs? why do you want me to go away for 2 weeks and i'll just, i won't forget it. she literally looked at me and says, my waiting room is completely full right now. i don't have time to go into detail with you about any of this. the problem in germany is that there aren't enough therapist, is that there are strict controls on how many of them can be licensed to accept public insurance, which most people have limiting supply. keeps costs down for the insurance. chronic

under funding is a global problem worldwide, only 2 percent of health budgets go into mental health care. and according to the world health organization, around 2 thirds of that spending goes into an outdated model of care, psychiatric hospitals. the medical journal lancet psychiatry says major economic trends like precarious jobs, reduced prospect of homeownership. an on affordable rent are contributing to use mental health entering a dangerous phase. other factors are social media use conflict on the climate crisis. a rachel lives in orland, which according to a recent survey, is the hardest place within the you to access mental health care. i had heard anecdotally that you know, wasting times were huge, impossible to get appointments and so on. so i think i would have maybe doing a cursory check of this and gone, oh god, that seems like the last thing that i have to headspace. for at the moment,

both jo and rachel ended up on an online therapy platform called better health. now if you're algorithmic gauze or anything like mine, you've probably seen the odds and your social media feeds. they're kind of everywhere. i have been in therapy since i was 6 years old. my parents said we want her to be emotionally intelligent and that i am, i never stop going to therapy problems and barely getting started. so easy. and you can change surface as many times as you want, literally by just clicking the button. so here's the new lender this time, choose your spouse. that are health is just one of a host of online therapy problems that have popped up over the past few years. many of them grew rapidly during the pump demik when telehealth took off better help was founded in 2013 and it's now owned by tele doc health, a publicly traded company. it's a subscription model with users, bills between $260.00 and $400.00 monthly. they can chat with their therapist on

video calls or via text. a better helps active user numbers fluctuation. but since it's finding close to 5000000 people have used the service, the company employed around 35000 therapists, mainly in the us and u. k. but it's also recently been recruiting and australia. last year it made over a $1000000000.00 in revenue. i feel like i maybe would have 1st heard about it through like pod cast and youtube advertising. you know they, they sponsor an awful lot of videos and a lot of pod cast and stuff like that. they sure do. according to miguel m a i in july of this year, better help spent more than any other brand on podcast sponsorships has been well over 7000000 dollars in july alone. their monthly youtube ad spend is in the millions to when you sign up, you have to fill out a health questionnaire and we're going to talk more about it thought laser. now, after being messed with a therapist, rachel wrote to her described in her issues. 3 days later she received

a pretty impersonal and stop sending response. something along the lines of the stereotypical sort of, oh interesting, how does that make you feel? it just sort of mediately gave me a bit of a bad feel and i just thought this person isn't actually really engaging with any of what i talk device. she eventually switched therapist, i've tried to arrange a video call, but the therapist didn't show up after das rachel left the platform. it felt like there was nobody in better health the carriage because it was just matching me up with these were i'm damarius. there was no like central person or team. nobody reached out to me like after the failed voice calls and or anything like that. the internet is full of stories about people who have had bad experiences with better help from a young woman with an eating disorder who's therapist dangerously missed the mark. what she said to me there was no good for you. congratulations on all that weight loss. deleted the child, delete the app, and never advocated for myself again to

a guy who's therapist seemed well distracted. she would go off of cameras sometimes like and do other stuff. so i do another one, same thing. she's going off a camera this time she's in austria on vacation. we know clients are far more likely to share bad experiences. the good and we will actually hear a positive, better health experience laser. but 1st, we need to figure out what's happening on the other side. becky, not her real name, worked at better help for 5 years. i, i called better help the uber of mental health because people have this expectation that they're going to sign up and then automatically be able to see a therapist. but that's not how it works. better help is a classic gig economy model. therapists can work flexibly online as much or as little as they want a it was a lot during kogan, which is to be expected. so i was doing that plus, working full time. they do have an incentive program where like the more clients

you see, the higher pay rate will be which to me is sabrina, go. they have like a messaging system. so they didn't expect you to constantly not such people, which is very, i know as stressful and you got paid for a certain amount of word. count. carly dover is the director of these trading association of psychologists. she's got serious misgivings about better helps recent expansion into a stray leah for work cuz the stuff is not accurate and we don't use and also the privacy and confidentiality to sends about patient data. information is very, very concerning. remember that health questionnaire, rachel and joe filled out when they signed up. it includes questions about your sex . well, as the relationship stay says, religion, physical health and financial spaces. last year, the federal trade commission accused better help of sharing those health questionnaires along with clients. e mail and ip addresses with companies including

facebook and snap tests. the company was fine to $7800000.00. competitor cerebral got a similar find this year. as well as privacy concerns. there's also the question of liability. both rachel and jo live in europe, but were initially matched with therapists in the us, in germany for example, if this were offline, those providers wouldn't be able to practice outside of their country without going through a lengthy process of having their qualifications recognized that or help says it only hires registered or license counselors, psychologist social workers and parent posts. but depending on what your restriction you're in, take astray leah, for example. what those terms mean can vary the surfaces as normal project. i don't, anyone can call themselves a therapist, george counseling. there's that's, is that actually engaging in kind of formal education and training about that? so if there are so many pitfalls how come the business model hasn't collapsed?

well, the thing is, sometimes it does work for people. here's jo talking by the 2nd better health therapist who was most with make sure that that was the main thing he was doing. it was like he was a waiter on the side like that was his main focus. and i really saw a massive change in quality based on that because he was like, absolutely right. he was exactly what i wish i had a guy who would have gotten 2 years previously. i reached out to better help for clarification on a number of issues raised in this video from working hours to data sharing and license checking. but i received no response. joe and rachel both paid out of pocket for their online therapy. but actually, the trend is moving away from that. steve duke works as an advisor to mental health companies. he says online therapy platforms are seeking a new payers more and more, especially the bigger ones. it's not the consumer, he's actually pay. it's very often either insurers or employers or schools

this applies to diego. remember we heard from him right at the beginning. in 2023. he was going through a crazily stressful period professionally. was like going to work every day. like if it was a veto game, it was like a very 3rd person i'm feeling and that moment was when, when there was, i think i'm losing my mind. if i got these point, i think i'm going not. so i completely, one of the perks of diego is company was access to a platform called open up through s. he started seeing a professional, and it was a, hey, it's okay to feedback for our page. okay. i have these guns. heidi is common because whatever is happening tomorrow at work, um, but now i know what it is. i know i can just and state and, and think through it as rates of mental health issues, increase, employers are increasingly offering workers access to online therapy platforms. if you go on to any of these companies, sites you go to their like for business section, all of this data around how they reduce ox and t as in pro employees,

how they increase worker productivity by providing mental health. so like that's the page, but it's, it's also your mental health to your employer, really the out there. at the beginning of this video, we looked at some of the economic factors that are contributing to port mental health. and we looked at why young people are struggling to attain the stability. their parents had. people are working, working surprises, the destinations in many countries and been shield um for many people going to university is either and accessible or it doesn't really mean the same only to the single jesus that says my have 10 or 15 years ago. and a world of mos layoffs and increasingly per terry is working conditions were lying on your employer for mental health support. can see my little off. i put that to steve duke. i think the 1st of all that we can probably separate those 2 things. right. so it's like, and of course something like laying off people is like

a risk factor for somebody's like mental health and but at the same time, does that mean that they shouldn't also provide like mental health services them? so he is like of course not right, like both of those things can be can be sure to can be true that it's bad to make people often it can also reach and it's good to offer the mental health services. but even a good job with benefits is no longer a guarantee of economic stability. in ireland, where rachel lives, the housing crisis means young people are spending years of their life in on certain living arrangements. reporting the story has opened my eyes to just how inaccessible mental health care can be. but it's also made me realize that without addressing our economic system as a risk factor, demand for services will only grow. i'd love to hear your thoughts on this. what's mental health care like where you are, and do you agree that economic factors are making the problem worse? let us know. thanks so much for watching. and so you get to the.