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More than ever, people are becoming more aware of the importance of caring for their mental health. The stigma around mental health has decreased, with even celebrities talking honestly about their mental health struggles and their conversations with therapists.
Many companies are recognizing the importance of mental health and leaning in to fill the gap in access with telehealth services. Talkspace is one of the pioneers in this field and, to this day, is one of the biggest companies offering access to online therapy.
However, some companies are taking the tech innovation of mental health beyond just traditional therapy. Businesses like Meru Health promise to use advanced IT, including biohacking, to improve mental health. You might be wondering which one is better, a more traditional approach or something brand new.
Here is your side-by-side comparison of the two companies so you can decide which one is better for you.
Talkspace vs. Meru Health—Quick Comparison
| Talkspace | Meru Health | |
| Services Offered | Therapy, Psychiatry | Therapy, Coaching, Biofeedback |
| Price | $69 to $109 per week | $700 for the whole 12-week program |
| Mobile App Available | Yes | Yes |
| Text Therapy | Yes | Yes |
| Video Therapy | Yes | Yes |
| In-Person Therapy | No | No |
| Accepts Insurance | Yes | Yes |
| Offers Prescriptions | Yes (with an add-on plan) | No |
| Age Range | 13 and older | 18 and older |
What Is Talkspace?
As mentioned above, Talkspace is one of the biggest mental health telehealth providers out there. It was founded in 2012 as a relationship therapy platform and quickly expanded to give people online access to a variety of care. It is one of the biggest providers out there, along with BetterHelp.
Patients who sign up for Talkspace are matched with a licensed therapist or counselor. Then, they communicate via texting or scheduled video appointments. All Talkspace patients meet with therapists remotely.
Talkspace offers a few different plans to help people access what they need. One of the add-on plans even includes basic psychiatric care with prescriptions for simple anxiety medications and anti-depressants.
What Is Meru Health?
Meru Health is a newer company on the mental health telehealth scene, but one with a lofty goal—to shake up the way people access mental health care.
The goal of Meru Health is to provide people with holistic mental health care. Patients are matched with a therapist or coach, with whom they interact via text. Some plans offer the option for a video call.
The real crowning achievement of Meru Health is its 12-week mental health care program. During this program, patients receive holistic, continuous support as they meet mental health challenges. Patients wear a biofeedback device, which monitors information such as the heart rate and can provide real-time feedback such as breathing exercises to help the patient calm down.
Meru Health prides itself on using the best of IT, including collecting valuable patient data, to make the mental health management process completely scientific. Plus, the company uses biofeedback to treat patients holistically, as mental health care is connected to physical health.
How Does Talkspace Work?
Talkspace works very similarly to traditional therapy, except that it takes place online. When patients sign up, they fill out a questionnaire about their mental health challenges, treatment preferences, and more. Then, Talkspace matches them to a therapist.
As soon as patients receive a therapist match, Talkspace creates a private, secure chatroom between the patient and the therapist. Patients can chat with their therapist at any time, although therapists only guarantee a response within one business day.
Patients can also schedule 30-minute video appointments. It’s important to note that not all Talkspace plans include this, and people on the most basic plan only have access to text therapy. The video appointments are similar to in-person therapy—the only difference is that it occurs online. Patients talk through their issues and receive feedback from licensed counselors or therapists based on psychotherapy techniques.
Patients can switch therapists at any time or stop using Talkspace if they feel as if they have accomplished their mental health goals or need a new therapist.
How Does Meru Health Work?
Meru Health is a bit more complex than most telehealth mental health providers because the company has the ambitious goal of providing comprehensive mental health at a distance.
When patients sign up or are referred to Meru Health, they download the app. They then complete an assessment, just like with Talkspace, that gives the app a sense of what the patient needs. Then, the app matches patients to a therapist and schedules an onboarding call.
The onboarding call is similar to an introductory session in traditional therapy, where a therapist explains the process and gets a feel for the patient’s mental health goals. However, after that, the program changes.
Meru Health ships an HRV biofeedback device to patients, which includes a smartphone and monitors for breath and heart rate. The patient begins a 12-week program with themed weeks guiding through different aspects of mental health. The feedback from the machine combined with self-reported feedback allows the patient and therapist to monitor outcomes in real-time. The rest of the 12-week program includes guided activities with lessons around different topics, such as mindfulness and stress resilience.
Relationships between therapists and patients are a bit different on Meru Health than on other platforms. Patients have continuous text support from therapists but do not have traditional in-person or even video appointments. There is a separate, shorter module that pairs patients with coaches who offer a few video sessions.
Advantages of Talkspace
One of the big advantages of Talkspace is its simplicity. The company is not trying to reinvent the wheel or disrupt anything; it is just trying to deliver therapy through telehealth, enabling people to access traditional talk therapy from the privacy and convenience of their own homes. There is a reason why therapy has remained the primary mode of mental health care for so long—it’s highly effective.
Thanks to its similarity to traditional talk therapy, Talkspace makes it easier to build relationships between a therapist and a patient. This relationship is one of the most important relationships in the mental health sphere. Without a trusting therapist-patient relationship, patients feel less comfortable opening up about deep-rooted issues and exploring those traumas. Regular video sessions help to build up that trust.
As an established player in the field of telehealth, Talkspace also gives patients access to a lot of resources other providers may not. For example, one of the add-on plans allows you to access psychiatry, which many other telehealth providers (including Meru Health) do not provide.
Talk therapy is great, but it isn’t enough to help with more acute situations of anxiety and depression. Talkspace also offers mental healthcare for teenagers, which smaller sites often don’t have the capacity for.
Talkspace’s size also means it’s easy to find therapists specializing in almost every mental health care issue. For certain complex issues such as sexual trauma or eating disorders, a generalized therapist may not be the best option.
Advantages of Meru Health
While Talkspace’s biggest advantage is its similarity to traditional talk therapy, Meru Health’s biggest advantage is that it goes in the other direction.
Meru Health uses scientifically proven techniques to analyze mental health and provide suggestions. Biofeedback monitors are not just there to give a veneer of IT advancement; they provide valuable feedback about heart rate and breathing rate and alert patients to their anxiety levels. Sometimes, the alert can pick up on a patient’s stress levels before they even realize it themselves.
Meru Health also has a comprehensive, holistic approach that recognizes the importance of physical health for mental health. Its therapists and counselors help patients work through physical health challenges, such as stress eating and insomnia, that are affecting their mental health. The techniques from Meru Health also help patients identify potential physical causes of their mental health challenges, such as vitamin deficiencies.
Finally, Meru Health offers support for building healthy habits, not just talking through your problems. Through anonymous support groups, video lessons, and worksheets, patients learn that they’re not alone and build important lifelong skills.
Signing Up for Talkspace or Meru Health
The process of signing up for Talkspace or Meru Health is very different.
For Talkspace, you start by either going to the website or downloading the app and creating an account. Then, you fill out a questionnaire that can help you match to the right therapist. Then, a matching agent walks you through a script to match you to a therapist. The final step is choosing your weekly plan, which differs in terms of services and price, and then you can talk to your therapist for the first time.
For Meru Health, you usually have to sign up through your insurance provider or workplace, although now Meru Health is starting to offer patients the opportunity to sign up and pay out of pocket. Then, you download the application and fill out a questionnaire. After the questionnaire, you have an onboarding call with a therapist, who will also be your designated therapist for texting conversations. Once your biomonitoring device arrives in the mail, you’re ready to start your program.
Talkspace vs. Meru Health—What’s the Difference?
Talkspace and Meru Health have completely different approaches to mental health care, which will determine which one you think is better for you. Here is a basic overview of their differences.
Presence of Biohacking
Meru Health places heavy emphasis on the idea of biofeedback or tracking biometric data to get better insight into patients’ behavior. For some people, this is a great advantage. Meru Health uses scientific behavioral health to monitor people’s actions and mental health states, providing real-time feedback and tips. For others, the idea of continuously monitoring their vitals seems invasive.
Plus, the emphasis on biofeedback is not for everyone. For example, Meru Health’s approach of monitoring people’s diets and warning against stress eating may be triggering instead of helpful for someone with an eating disorder.
Therapist Relationship
While both Talkspace and Meru Health employ licensed therapists, the nature of the therapist-patient relationship is very different for these two services.
Talkspace is very similar to working with a traditional therapist. You meet with one therapist continuously, either during live texting or video chat sessions. You build a relationship with this therapist, and they are your primary guide through your mental health journey.
With Meru Health, you video chat with your therapist during the onboarding process and rarely, if ever, after that. Instead, you communicate mostly via text. The emphasis is on building healthier habits and learning to self-regulate. However, some people find this approach impersonal. It is also not very effective for mental health challenges that go beyond basic anxiety and depression, such as childhood trauma.
Accessibility and Affordability
Talkspace is more widely accessible. Anyone can sign up for it. However, it is more expensive. While it offers some insurance coverage and financial aid, this is usually very limited.
Meru Health is less accessible but more affordable. If your workplace or insurance provider doesn’t cover it, it’s hard to sign up. However, if they do cover it, it’s completely free for you to use.
Talkspace vs. Meru Health—Pros and Cons
To sum it up, here is a quick overview of the pros and cons of each service.
Talkspace Pros
- Great therapist relationship building
- Psychiatric care available
- Teen care available
- Offers support for more complex mental health challenges
Talkspace Cons
- Have to pay extra for medicine and video calls
- Traditional approach doesn’t work for everyone
- Mostly have to pay out of pocket
Meru Health Pros
- Extremely scientific approach
- Focus on building lifelong healthy habits
- Biofeedback gives real-time insights
Meru Health Cons
- Privacy concerns over data
- Limited in mental health conditions it treats
- Not accessible to everyone
How to Choose the Right Therapist
Nobody can tell you which mental health platform is right for you. It is a very personal decision that comes down to what you are looking for out of your mental health journey.
If you know that you want more traditional talk therapy, just online, then Talkspace is the right choice for you. Talkspace has thousands of therapists specializing in many different issues. The platform makes it easier to build a secure patient-therapist relationship online. Talkspace is also better if you know you need support for more than 12 weeks.
Meru Health is for those who want something different. If you are a tech geek that lives for scientific approaches or you want insight into how to become healthier and less stressed on your own, the guided 12-week program is better for you.
Conclusion
The telehealth field is so expansive it has room for such vastly different providers as Talkspace and Meru Health. The choice about which is best comes down to whether you are a traditionalist or into trying new approaches to mental health.
Sources
- https://www.meruhealth.com/how-it-works/
- https://www.medgadget.com/2021/01/meru-healths-new-standards-for-mental-health-exclusive-with-ceo-kristian-ranta.html
- https://www.pcmag.com/news/this-12-week-mental-health-program-lives-in-your-phone
- https://onemindpsyberguide.org/apps/meru-health/
- https://digital.health/product-detail/meru_health?review=review
- https://optimistminds.com/talkspace-vs-meru-health/