Andrew: You’re a systemized guy. What kinds of systems did you put in place to allow all these therapists to work well in this unique environment?
Alon: You mean technically?
Andrew: No, do you have any suggestions for how they can get people to feel comfortable in the first chat? Do have any suggestions for what to do to digest someone’s 50-page manifesto about what’s wrong with the world?
Alon: So a suggestion is really a tricky word. One of the things we’re very careful is not to tell therapists how to work. We’re not therapists. They are the professionals.
Andrew: Do you allow them to pass best practices to each other?
Alon: Best practices in a very general way, things that we know work more online, more semi-technical. But we’re definitely not telling therapists how to do therapy.
Andrew: Do you have a Slack group or some kind of chat where they can help each other out?
Alon: We have a forum.
Andrew: You have a forum?
Alon: We have a therapist forum that’s very, very active. It’s very heated at time.
Andrew: I see. So you let them help each other out. What’s one topic they got heated about?
Alon: I remember one topic was around substance abuse and how tough to be with a client with someone doing therapy that is relapsing. Should you be more comforting or should you be more aggressive? But these are the same discussions therapists have regardless–
Andrew: And you’re encouraging them to do it online. What’s the software that you use for your forum?
Alon: I think that the basic was something called Vanilla Forums. We’ve kind of changed it and tweaked it so much.
Andrew: That it’s your own now.
Alon: Yes.
https://mixergy.com/interviews/betterhelp-with-alon-matas/ (
https://archive.is/mlFQ4 )
