05.09
Doing the Work: Therapeutic Labor, Teletherapy, and the Platformization of Mental Health Care
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm ET • Hosted By Data & Society
Increasingly, online therapy has become one of the main ways that people seek and engage in psychotherapy in the US, especially since the COVID pandemic. While this represents a significant shift for those on the receiving end of care, it has also transformed the work of mental health providers — as they interact with more digital tools, provide care in the virtual space, and see and find clients through direct-to-consumer platforms. Even as teletherapy and platform therapy have enabled more people to access and benefit from these services, for providers, this increased availability has often meant intensified labor.
Data & Society’s forthcoming report Doing the Work: Therapeutic Labor, Teletherapy, and the Platformization of Mental Health Careexplores how these new arrangements of therapeutic labor are affecting how therapists provide care and make a living in the US. By focusing on the experiences of providers who practice teletherapy and work for digital platforms, our research examines the fundamental tensions that emerge when a profession rooted in clinical expertise, licensing, and training standards meets the dynamics of platformization, productivity incentives, and algorithmic management.
In this conversation, we’ll reflect on how technology is changing the conditions of how therapists do their work, what the consequences are for the present and future of therapeutic labor, and how this might be changing our understanding of therapy itself.