Comparing Message-based Psychotherapy to Once-weekly, Video-based Psychotherapy for Moderate Depression and Anxiety

Message-Based Psychotherapy (MBP) allows patients to chat with an assigned licensed therapist as frequently as they wish. After consumers complete an intake and select a therapist, the consumer can begin chatting with their therapist right away, and as often as they wish. Therapists respond to text within 15 minutes to an hour during office hours, and within 14 hours outside of office hours. Thus, MBP is not fully synchronous. This enables therapists to deliver care to a larger number of patients than is possible under synchronous methods by disentangling the therapist's time from the patient's time to respond. It also has the potential to improve quality as it gives the therapist time to think through the most effective response and intervention. MBP will be based on CBT, PST or IPT intervention strategies.

Video Chat Only (VCP) consists of weekly psychotherapy appointments that last between 30-45 minutes. These sessions are conducted using Agora, a secure, HIPAA-compliant video conferencing service that is seamlessly integrated into the Talkspace platform application. Therapists will provide evidence-based treatments for depression and anxiety.