Psychological Platforms between Self-Care and Self-Branding

The presentation aims to investigate online platforms offering psychological services. It can identify in the key word ‘comfort’ the red thread that holds together the various digital services. In the specific case of therapy this has different consequences depending on the interface considered, that of the User-Patient or that of the User-Professional. Generally speaking, this “comfort” is realized by making therapy friendly, tailored on the patient and affordable. This fact causes the necessary rapprochement to bridge the gap of the screen, but it also expresses the desire to satisfy every need of the patient-consumer, who can have therapy whenever and wherever they want. Despite the declared intention of these platforms is a democratisation of mental health and a breaking down of the taboos associated with it, a void in the national health system is being capitalised on, and certain trends are being nurtured, including those towards self-diagnosis and the general medicalisation of life. On the other side of the interface, that one of therapist, something similar happens because it’s the difficulty of young professionals in succeeding in their profession to be exploited. With online therapy it’s indeed no longer necessary renting an office. Also, within the infrastructure of the platform both bureaucratic and self-branding skills are not required, because with a fee paid on each therapy session, this kind of work is done by the infrastructure itself. This twofold analysis provides a clear view of what kind of therapy and what idea of mental health the psychological platforms want to convey: instead of normalise therapy, they capitalise on it, enabling professionals to dialogue with consumers of a service rather than patients, and accepting a fee per session not exactly respectful of the profession they claim to value. Summarizing, a trivialization of both therapeutic practise and the therapist's profession is happening.