Why Venture Capitalist Online Therapy Platforms Can Be Harmful to Clients

Venture capitalist (VC)-backed online therapy platforms have become prominent players in mental health care, promoting accessibility and convenience for clients worldwide. However, the high-growth model of these platforms often prioritizes profit over quality of care. As a result, VC-backed therapy companies can pose significant risks to clients. Here are some of the most pressing concerns:

1. Profit Over Client-Centered Care
   VC-funded platforms are driven by the need to deliver substantial returns to investors, which can come at the expense of providing individualized, client-centered care. With a focus on profitability, these platforms may emphasize the volume of clients rather than the quality of support each client receives. This can lead to a “quick fix” approach to therapy, compromising the potential for meaningful therapeutic relationships and outcomes.

2. Therapist Burnout and High Turnover
   In their pursuit of growth, many VC-backed platforms require therapists to manage high caseloads, often while offering them inadequate compensation and minimal clinical support. This model results in high levels of therapist burnout, diminishing their ability to offer high-quality, empathetic care. Additionally, high turnover among therapists disrupts continuity for clients, which can undermine the therapeutic process and client progress.

3. Deceptive Advertising and Disruption of Private Practice
   Some VC-backed therapy platforms engage in deceptive advertising practices to attract clients and drive traffic to their services, even at the expense of individual private practices. These companies may purchase ads that mislead clients by using the names and credentials of independent clinicians without permission, diverting traffic away from their private practices. This tactic creates an unfair competitive advantage and can mislead clients into choosing corporate platforms over trusted individual providers.

4. Questionable Data Privacy Practices
   With profitability tied to data, some VC-backed platforms collect and share client data with third parties, raising significant privacy concerns. This data may be used for targeted advertising or other revenue-generating activities, potentially putting sensitive client information at risk. Compromised confidentiality can damage the therapeutic alliance, as clients may feel reluctant to share openly, knowing their information may not be fully secure.

5. Lack of Personalized Care
   To achieve scale, VC-backed platforms often rely on algorithms and standardized assessment tools to match clients with therapists. While efficient, these tools lack the nuance required to address the unique needs and backgrounds of each client, resulting in a “one-size-fits-all” model. Such an approach limits the depth and personalization of therapeutic work, leading to potentially lower satisfaction and effectiveness in therapy.

6. Reduced Accountability and Oversight
   VC-backed platforms frequently expand with minimal clinical oversight and accountability, which can lead to inconsistent standards of care. In their haste to grow, some platforms may overlook essential clinical guidelines or fail to ensure that clients receive timely support, particularly in crisis situations. The lack of regulatory oversight and accountability further compromises the quality and safety of care provided.

VC-backed online therapy platforms may seem appealing due to their accessibility and marketing claims, but the profit-driven model can compromise the integrity and quality of therapy. Clients should be aware of these risks and consider independent providers where possible. Additionally, stricter guidelines and ethical standards are needed to ensure that online therapy platforms are held accountable for protecting client privacy, maintaining high standards of care, and practicing ethical advertising.

Some People Believe Safety Exists. Others That Safety Does Not Exist. Personality and Politics, Part 1: GUN

It was 2018. I was visiting counselor friends in Orlando. We are sitting around the conference table in the only office I ever considered home, talking about stuff when my friend made a contemptuous comment about her husband buying a shotgun.

I like guns. I like the 2nd amendment. I think any person who can’t take me in fight should be armed because there are monsters in the dark. The comment got to me. Why do I and my friend have such opposite views about guns? And does this extend to swords, fists, and violence in general?

When I was commuting for hours from the place that I hated living in to the job that was genuinely killing me, I thought about this question. When I was driving back I thought about it. When I was at the gym, pretending to work out I thought about it. When I was freezing my ass off in the cold dead winters of Pittsburgh I was thinking about it. When I was letting the sun cook my brain I thought about it. Why are we so opposite on this subject? Why do I think that in order to be safe its best to be armed, and why does she think the opposite?

So it took about 18 months to get the answer and when I finally understood, when I finally got hit in the head by the goddamn clue-by- four, the skies opened up and angels sang.

Some people believe safety exists. Other people believe safety does not exist.

It blew my mind once I figured this out. If you grew up like I did, being traumatized, constantly afraid, constantly waiting for the agony to hit you, you want safety but it is a rare thing. No one ever provided that for me. In fact if I ever asked for that I was called a pussy and then beaten up. And then told I was morally wrong for wanting basic safety in the first place.

Of course I want to be armed.

The world is dangerous, random, and tragic. People are malicious, or so incompetent that it ends up being the same effect as malice. Get a gun because you can use it to defend yourself. It is only by my own ability to create safety around me that I can feel safe.

For me, someone willfully choosing to remove their ability to protect themselves and the people they love is the height of suicidal foolishness. But then you talk to these normies who were probably raised right. If you grew up relatively safely, or at the very least grew up with the belief and experience that danger is the exception rather than the rule, then of course you see things differently. The world is safe and in that safety you can find joy and peace. People are generally nice, or at the very least not malicious against you. Safety exists as a normal part of the universe, and it's only when a monster shows up that it becomes dangerous.

Of course you don’t want to be armed, safety exists naturally and you don’t have to do anything to attain it.

No one talks about the actual belief about whether safety exists or not. When you hear the politicians on the C-SPAN or the talking heads on the radio, the Democrat calls the Republican a bloodthirsty animal who just wants to kill, and the Republican calls the Democrat an overprivileged weakling who never had to throw a punch to save his pathetic life.

When you hear the debate about gun control, no one is actually talking about what's really going on underneath the surface. We’re just screaming at each other, trying to shout down the other side. Or we’re using the useless tools of “facts and logic” to fight them, as if it was ever an intellectual, logical, or objective issue.

When I work with my veterans, my service members, my first responders, and they say, “I have to sit down with my front to the door and my back to a wall”, “I can never actually have someone behind me.” “Getting off the elevator, I always let the other person go first. No one's going to get behind me to put a knife in my back.” .

And then they complain about their girlfriends, just gallivanting through the Starbucks with no situational awareness, not even knowing that a freaking animal can come in and kill us all. Safety doesn't exist for this person, except that which they, and the few people they trust, actually create around them. They know how dangerous it is out there. It’s my job to help them learn how to trust and relax and lower their hypervigilance to just vigilance

(Side note. Military, police, first responders recruit almost exclusively from those who grew up in chaotic, neglectful, dangerous, and/or traumatizing environments. More on that in a future dispatch.)

Then I talk to their wives or girlfriends who say, “I don't understand why he’s so tense. I don't understand why that we have to be like carrying a gun all the time and having a bug out bag and all this other stuff and why he has to like be so freaked about walking down the damn street.”

This concept of safety not existing is one of the many things that contributed to my social anxiety and social isolation. I was constantly terrified of everything because everything was constantly dangerous. I never knew the rules but the consequences of breaking them were megaton. Constant surprising agony, rejection, loneliness, berating.

And when I saw people who actually felt safe, who were relaxed, who trusted each other and their families, who could actually enjoy life, I didn’t understand it. How were they not constantly afraid, or at least aware of how dangerous everything was?

It took so long for me to realize that the danger for me was real, but it wasn’t for them. And it was never supposed to be there for me in the first place.

I could go on about this, and I will in part 2. In the meantime, look at yourself and look at your beliefs about violence and peace and safety and danger. Look at someone else who has the opposite views as you, and imagine what it would take for you to be like them.

Slay the Lie: “This is the Best I’ll Get”

At some point, many of us look at our lives, feel the quiet dread, and face a truth we don’t want to admit:

This isn’t what I wanted.

The relationship that feels more like resignation than love. The job that drains more than it gives. The city that never quite felt like home.

And yet, we stay. We settle for what we have. We swallow the discomfort and tell ourselves, “It’s not that bad.”

But the real problem isn’t that things are unbearable. They’re just bearable enough to stop us from reaching for something better.

This is a world that punishes failure and romanticizes endurance. We’re taught it’s safer to grasp what’s available, even if it’s uninspiring, than to risk reaching for what we truly want and falling short. We’re taught that disappointment is worse than numbness.

Take the bird in hand. Stop dreaming about the sky.

People don’t choose misery on purpose. They choose what feels most accessible: the familiar, the tolerable, the thing that won’t leave them empty-handed. This is how we end up accepting the unacceptable.

Maybe you tried going for more once, and got burned. Maybe you were taught not to expect much from people, or from life. Maybe every time you reached higher, someone told you you were selfish, naive, arrogant, or ungrateful.

So you began shrinking your vision. You stopped asking, What do I want? and started asking, What can I tolerate?

“This is the best I’ll get” isn’t a truth. It’s a trauma response.

It’s your brain trying to protect you from the heartbreak of wanting more and not getting it. Easier to settle than to risk hunger. Easier to go numb than to long for what feels out of reach.

But easier doesn’t mean better. And tolerable isn’t the same as aligned.

What would someone who loved themself do?

They would choose the hard road if it fed their soul. They would admit when “good enough” isn’t good enough. And they’d stop mistaking survival for success.

To start living the life you want, not just the one that’s available, here’s what must happen:

1. Admit what you have is not enough.

Yes, it will hurt. Yes, it will shake the foundation you built just to feel safe. The anxiety, grief, heartbreak means you’re waking up and seeing the truth. Let yourself mourn. Let yourself rage. Let yourself want.

2. Turn off autopilot.

Most people don’t choose mediocrity, they just stop choosing altogether. Look at your habits, your relationships, your work. Inventory your life. Ask yourself: Did I actively choose this? Or did I just stop trying?

3. Ask: If I believed it was safe to want, what would I want?

Let the answers come. Don’t justify them. Don’t edit them.

Wanting isn’t arrogance and desire is not sin. Stop making your dreams smaller just to make them seem “reasonable.” Let them be as big and impractical as they want to be

4. Listen to the resistance.

You’ll hear whispers, That’s unrealistic. You’re too much. You’ll never get there.

That voice isn’t the truth. It’s your protection system. It’s trying to shut the door before disappointment can walk through. Don’t argue. Just notice. Then say, I hear you. And I’m choosing to want more anyway.

5. Listen to the scarcity mindset.

Scarcity says: Good relationships are rare. Fulfilling work is rare. You should be lucky to have anything at all. What you have should be enough.

Scarcity wants you to confuse crumbs for feasts, but that’s a lie that keeps you small. Once again, don’t argue. Just notice. Then say, I hear you. And I’m choosing to want more anyway.

6. Relearn how to want.

If your first instinct is, “I don’t know what I want,” that’s not a lack of ambition.

That’s the residue of suppression, of repression. Wanting is a skill. It has to be safe before it can be clear. Start small. Daydream often. Let your desires be wild, impractical, holy.

You don’t have to change everything overnight.

You just have to stop pretending this is the best you’ll get.

I despise needs being seen as a problem

If you would like to watch the video instead please find it here

I was yelling at one of my clients the other day. He's lonely. He's one of my socially anxious people. Reminds me of me. I've been horribly, horribly socially anxious in the past. And we've been discussing “how do we actually want to maintain our relationships, our friendships as we transition, as people move apart.”

And I said, tell the the person that. Tell the person whether boy, girl, romantic partner, potential romantic partner or not, “Hey, I want to make sure that we maintain this relationship over time. In fact, maybe I want us all to live together. Hey, maybe I want to live close together. Hey, I want to join the commune. Hey, what's your Discord so we can play over the internet if you're on the other side of the planet.”

But he said something like, "But isn't that needy and weak?" And I disagreed. I hate it as a message. Because it's a message we all get. It's like “the person with the least needs is the most powerful.” The person who's robot, if they're emotionally unaffected by reality, they're the most powerful. They win the most.

And there's something to be said for that. If you're in a job that involves blood, running towards gunfire, running into a burning building then yes, there's a little bit of emotional control, a little bit of stoicism certainly isn't a bad thing.

But if it's taken it too far then it is avoidance of needs, avoidance of vulnerability, avoidance of “weakness.” Well, if I never have friends, I'll never be betrayed by them. Too bad you're just going to be lonely the rest of your life. Well, if I never actually have any sexual drive, any romantic drive, I'll never pursue it. That means I'll never get rejected. And that feels a lot more powerful than having my heart broken.

And it's so wrong. Independence can be a virtue, but independence to the point where you're just cutting yourself off from the rest of humanity sure as hell isn't. You're not that guy who goes to Alaska and lives in the wilderness forever. And if you are, kudos to you. Just take a look at the needs or the things you say that you shouldn't want, you shouldn't desire, you shouldn't actually have as a human need, and be like, "Nah, expletive that. I'm human and I'm allowed to pursue the love, safety, sleep, sex, beauty, fulfillment, self-actualization, whatever the hell it is you want, need.”