In the 2001 film Kissing Jessica Stein, a neurotic New Yorker falls in love with a woman for the first time. “What does your therapist say about all of this?” her girlfriend asks.
“Oh, I could never tell my therapist” she responds. “Why not?”
“Because it’s private.”
It was a joke, of course. One that flies against our expectations of how seeing a
psychologist should go.
In much of popular culture, therapy is presented as a sacred, sealed-off space where patients—supine on a TV therapy couch—experience a kind of emotional exorcism.
“I’m scared of being abandoned!”, a character will blurt out. “I think I have trust issues”, another might confess.
So when I started seeing a psychologist I expected the root cause of my distress to quickly emerge.
But despite being in therapy for many years, there were things that I struggled to talk about within the walls of a traditional clinical setting. The issues that caused me shame, discomfort and rupture were difficult to acknowledge to myself—let alone a therapist.
So how about a form of therapy where you can be invisible?
Earlier this year, I found myself in a bind. I was in a foreign country, and a spate of high anxiety had me struggling to function. But with no access to the country’s healthcare system, my chances of finding an affordable therapist were slim to none.
When a friend suggested text therapy, I was sceptical. Text therapy, I assumed, could only ever be a watered-down version of seeing someone in the flesh. How was firing off a bunch of text messages going to help? Without the richness of an IRL exchange—replete with the facial expressions and body language—text therapy
seemed like a roundabout way of throwing $200 down the drain.
But with no other option in sight, I bit the bullet and bought a one-month subscription. It was never going to be as good as seeing the ‘real thing’, I thought, but it was better than nothing.
I answered a series of screening questions—including my age, gender, and the main issue causing me distress, before being matched with a therapist I’ll call Nora.
Nora was a qualified psychologist from Israel with a specialisation in trauma therapy.
When I received her first text message, I immediately felt I was in good hands.
“Hello, dear!” Her initial text message read. “I am so pleased that you have reached out for help. Can you tell me what’s bothering you?”
In contrast to IRL therapy, Nora knew nothing about me—not even my name. And while some may find that kind of anonymity a barrier to building trust, that very anonymity freed me to reveal the fears that had eluded me in the past.
Slowly, I began to open up about a new relationship and the daily panic I was experiencing.
Nora made me confront my fear of intimacy in a way that I never had before, and treated me with kindness and compassion in the process.
Not unlike a confessional seal, the anonymity of text therapy offered a space where I could divulge feelings that I had been avoiding—to workshop my insecurities without self-consciousness or shame.
Of course, Nora’s support could only ever be a temporary solution. The childhood issues at the root of my problems were too buried and too complex to resolve within a few weeks.
But Nora guided me towards the core issues I needed to work on; helping me realise that the feelings I had been so doggedly avoiding over the years were the ones that needed to take centre stage.
Plus, during a bout of severe anxiety, being able to contact a professional every day—as opposed to waiting days or even weeks for an appointment—was a godsend. “I am here to help you cross these days," Nora said. And at the time, that was all I needed to hear.
Text therapy isn’t a panacea, but it kept me afloat during a difficult time in a way that traditional therapy may not have. I’ve since returned to Australia, seen my GP and been referred to a new therapist. “Can you tell me what’s bothering you?” He asked during our first session. And, with a newfound clarity, I responded: “yes”.
*Author's name has been changed.
