3 ms·
The website comes off as shady, insinuating that the service is an equivalent or valid alternative to therapy with a professional therapist. The way the 'listen
by overgryphon 13y ago
The website comes off as shady, insinuating that the service is an equivalent or valid alternative to therapy with a professional therapist. The way the 'listeners' are referred to as trained many times (which amounts to an online course, which could mean anything- how rigorous is this course? Are any would-be listeners turned away due to their performance during the course? Does the course last longer than an hour?), and especially the sentence "While many of our Active Listeners happen to be licensed professional counselors and therapists".
It would be more honest to portray the service as an online hotline.
- 7cupsoftea 13y agoI understand your perspective. We are not trying to portray listeners as licensed mental health professionals. We use the word trained to suggest that active listening is different from the normal kind of listening that most of us experience in our regular lives. ie, active listening is different from having a normal conversation. People normally don't use summarizing, paraphrasing and empathy regularly. Also, pointing to the licensed people on the site is not meant to equate active listeners with mental health professionals, but to simply highlight that there are a good number of licensed mental health professionals on the site.