During the pandemic, I've become fascinated by this particular genre of ads.

Hey, friends. Are you overwhelmed by 24-7 time with the kids?

Ads like this one with swimmer Michael Phelps that acknowledge how hard life can be right now.

Or perhaps you feel all alone.

And it makes me want to reply and say, yeah, Michael Phelps, sometimes I do feel overwhelmed.

We're not just living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

We're also living through an unprecedented mental health crisis.

Now might be the time to talk to a licensed therapist.

Phelps is a spokesman for Talkspace, a mental health app that provides audio, video, and text

therapy. Talkspace is just one of these apps. Better help is another. There are a lot of them.

And once you notice one therapy app ad, they're suddenly everywhere.

The one that for me, like, has lodged in my brain and I now feel

like every time I hear it, I'm like, oh my God, this is so bad is the one that plays nonstop on

the daily. That's like, mental health is finally cool. That's Molly Fisher. She writes for the

cut at New York Magazine. But therapy doesn't just have to be

talking about feelings. Therapy can be whatever you want it to be. And it just seems so nakedly like,

no, no, it can't. What responsible provider would ever tell you that therapy can be whatever you

want it to be? Like, I wouldn't go to a dermatologist that said skincare can be whatever you want it to be. Like, I wouldn't go to a dermatologist that said skincare can be whatever you want it to be.

Like, that's just not how care works.

But it is how therapy apps work.

Molly wrote about these apps and what they promise customers.

They offer a new kind of mental health care, cheaper, more accessible, something you can do without leaving your house or even putting down your phone. But is that a good thing?

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