Are you struggling to find a good counselor? Perhaps your employer or your insurance plan directed you to the “free counseling” you get on one of the many corporate platforms. While “free” sounds good, trust me when I say that there is steep price you will pay in the long run when you get sub-par clinical mental health care. After all, this is your life we are talking about, not a toaster or a new sweater! Read on to discover more about the hidden dangers of allowing tech companies and algorithms to direct your mental health care and how to conduct a search to find the best counselor near you.
Rapid changes in mental health post-covid
In recent years, the mental health field has undergone dramatic shifts. Large hospital systems, insurance companies, venture-capital–backed corporations, and other profit-driven entities have moved into the space once dominated by small, locally owned private practices. They saw the huge demand for mental health and then saw dollar signs in their eyes when the option of virtual counseling became a necessity. Their model has often been described as the “Uber-ization” of mental health care—reducing clinicians to gig workers, pushing down reimbursement rates, and prioritizing volume over quality.
The “Gig” mental health provider
For providers, these changes are creating an unsustainable environment. Many counselors, especially newer counselors, trying to establish their practices, are forced to contract with corporate networks to maintain patient flow, even if reimbursement rates barely cover operating costs. The pressure to see more clients in less time undermines the depth of therapeutic relationships. Burnout becomes a serious risk for these clinicians, and when providers suffer, the quality of care inevitably suffers too.
How this impacts your mental health care
For you as a client, this shift means that care is often less personalized, less consistent, and more driven by profit metrics than by human-centered care. You feel more like “just another client” instead of like a person that really matters to your counselor. Large corporations often focus on short-term interventions designed to reduce costs, rather than the individualized, long-term care that allows room for true healing. The therapeutic relationship has been proven time and again to be the number one most important determinate of the effectiveness of counseling. And of course, this relationship is often compromised when providers are gig workers who are overworked, undervalued and underpaid by these tech-bro corporate platforms.
How to actually find the best counselor near you
So how do you search effectively to find a local, independently owned counseling practice near you?
- When you search google for a “counselor near me” include in your search terms words like “local, small, independently owned counseling agencies near me.”
- Note, you may have to search several pages, as the corporate tech-bro platforms that are dominating our field, also dominate Google Search engines with their ginormous advertising budgets.
- Once you’ve found some local options, then spend some time researching who actually owns these local agencies you find online. If you scratch beneath the surface of the name, you’ll find that far too many mid-size and large agencies are actually owned by large corporations or by insurance companies themselves.
- When you find a local provider, ask if they contract with any of the online corporate tech companies, such as Rula, Grow, BetterHelp, Headway or Talkspace. If the answer is “yes”, though they may be a good counselor, they may also be overworked and burned out trying to make ends meet. (You also risk your personal data being shared and your confidentiality being breached if you see a counselor who is using one these platforms, but that’s another blog post!)
- Continue the search until you find a provider in your local area that is truly independent and does not contract with any online platforms.
Choose local to find the best counselor near you
Independently owned and operated mental health agencies remain vital to our communities. Local, privately owned practices like Full Circle Counseling Services, are not beholden to venture capital demands or corporate cost-cutting strategies. As a result, they can provide more flexible, personalized care. By choosing to support independent providers, you will not only receive higher quality care but also help sustain a system where therapists can focus on what matters most: healing, growth, and human connection.
As the mental health landscape continues to change, you as a client have power in your choices. Vote with your feet and vote with your dollars. Seek out local, independent providers when possible. Tell your employer and your insurance you do not want to be steered to a large online corporate platforms for your mental health care, but instead want access to and coverage for local, in-person independently owned counseling agencies. By doing so, you not only support small businesses but also ensure that quality, compassionate care remains accessible to you and to all those in your community.
