As you spend more time discussing goals and challenges with your Talkspace therapist, you may have questions or are interested in learning more about specific mental health topics and conditions. The Talkspace Bookshelf offers up-to-date mental health information directly from our behavioral health team to provide a better understanding of condition origins, diagnoses, various forms a condition may take, and different treatment options. Feel free to use this resource as a starting point to open up a dialogue and pose questions for your Talkspace therapist.
Online therapy offers access and convenience to a licensed therapist in a cadence that you may not be able to experience via traditional brick-and-mortar therapy. Text and video messaging or live-video sessions offer a great deal of flexibility for those with very busy lives.
You may be wondering what to do if you find yourself experiencing an emotional crisis or life-threatening situation. This is an important scenario to consider when using online therapy, as most of your interactions with your therapist will not occur in real time. For some, it may be concerning to not be able to reach your therapist via phone in the midst of an emergency.
It can be difficult to discern when you may be in the middle of an emotional crisis. Here are some signs that may be helpful in identifying the need for immediate support:
- Extreme isolation
- Thoughts of suicide or self harm
- Thoughts of dying that won’t go away
- Feeling like you don’t belong anywhere
- Feeling as if you don’t deserve to live
- Feeling as if you are a burden to others
- Creating plans for causing serious harm to yourself or others
- Securing items that you may need to cause harm to self or others
For situations that do not include imminent risk of death or bodily harm, please consider speaking with your therapist openly about your concerns. For periodic circumstances where safety is a consideration, such as, but not limited to, domestic violence or recurring suicidal thoughts, a therapist will be able to work with you on a specific plan if the conditions worsen and potentially reach a life-threatening level. This plan may include identifying warning signs of worsening mental health, ways to combat isolation or apathy, and interventions that help you cope with difficult emotions.
However, if you are in a life-threatening situation, or find yourself in those circumstances in the future, then it is helpful for you to have 24-hour resources available for support.
Talkspace does not offer 24-hour support. Additionally, the service is not appropriate if you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency including, but not limited to, suicidal intent or harm. Talkspace has compiled a list of resources that are helpful to you in the event that you experience a crisis and your therapist is not immediately available.
You will find these resources below:
United States
911 Emergency
+1 (800) 273-8255 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
+1 (800) 799-7233 National Domestic Violence Hotline
+1 (800) 996-6228 Family Violence Helpline
+1 (800) 784-2433 National Hopeline Network
+1 (800) 366-8288 Self-Harm Hotline
+1 (800) 230-7526 Planned Parenthood Hotline
+1 (800) 222-1222 American Association of Poison Control Centers
+1 (800) 622-2255 Alcoholism & Drug Dependency Hopeline
+1 (800) 233-4357 National Crisis Line, Anorexia and Bulimia
+1 (888) 843-4564 GLBT National Hotline
+1 (866) 488-7386 TREVOR Crisis Hotline (for LGBTQ youth)
+1 (800) 221-7044 AIDS Crisis Line
+ 1 (877) 565-8860 Trans Lifeline (for transgender support)
Canada
911 Emergency
+1 (888) 353-2273 Hotline
+1 (877) 330-6366 Trans Lifeline (for transgender support)
UK & Republic of Ireland
112 / 999 Emergency
+44 (0) 8457 90 90 90 Hotline (UK - Local rate)
+44 (0) 8457 90 91 92 Hotline (UK - Minicom)
1850 60 90 90 Hotline (ROI - Local rate)
1850 60 90 91 Hotline (ROI - Minicom)
Australia
000 Emergency
1 300 13 11 14 LifeLine Australia
New Zealand
111 Emergency
0800 543 354 Lifeline 24/7 Helpline
0508 828 865 Suicide Crisis Helpline
Therapeutic Note
Remember your therapist is here to help you figure out the best way to address your concerns. Therapy works best when it is a collaboration between you and your therapist. It is important to be open, honest, and an active participant in this process. Talk to your therapist about your goals for therapy so that together you can come up with the best plan to achieve your goals.
Questions for My Therapist:
- How do I know when my thoughts of self-harm actually reach to the level of suicide?
- What are my options if I do feel recurring thoughts of harming myself or someone else?
- Do people ever recover from suicidal thoughts?
- How can I manage overwhelming emotions in the moment? Are there any strategies for this?
- What if I utilize Talkspace from a location not mentioned above? Do I still have emergency resources if I experience a crisis?
Sources:
American Telemedicine Association. Practice guidelines for videoconferencing-based telemental health. 2009 Retrieved from http://www.americantelemed.org/files/public/standards.PracticeGuidelinesforVideoconferencing-Based% 20TelementalHealth. pdf.[PubMed].
Firestone, L., PhD. (n.d.). Suicide: What Therapists Need to Know. Retrieved August 17, 2017, from https://www.apa.org/education/ce/suicide.pdf
Luxton, D. D., Sirotin, A. P., & Mishkind, M. C. (n.d.). Safety of telemental healthcare delivered to clinically unsupervised settings: a systematic review. Retrieved August 17, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20583951