Does your therapist use a foodbank?
“On the shared screen she clicks onto an unobtrusive spreadsheet which laid out the basis for the UberTherapy business model. It showed how US$ hourly rates are determined by the number of clients – five clients or lower is set at $30 going up incrementally every five clients up to the top rate of $70 if you take fourty clients. Claims of being able to earn $100k pepper the platform implying a ‘supracompetitive’ pricing system where the algorithm behind the curtain can adjust the winnings based on intensity of the service. Surge pricing for peak demand late at night and on the weekends all nudging therapists towards customer service, a model entirely transported from the US.
I try with my bad maths to calculate how much money was made paying UK therapists in US$ during the cost of living crisis when Stirling became worthless. She confirms her take home pay is £18 per hour. She doesn’t think her clients who pay £45-55 per hour would be happy to know that.”
UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health
The reality is that even by 2023 4% of therapists used a foodbank and with uberization and the hunger games of dynamic pay systems, things can only get worse.
Stories of UberTherapy is a podcast series and Episode 4 Do you have to marry a rich man to be a therapist, a conversation between James Farrar (Worker Info Exchange), Hilda Poulson (National Union of Healthcare Workers) and Linda Michaels (Psychotherapy Action Network) on the lessons of organizing Uber drivers and the Kaiser Permanente hunger strike.
Listen here.
Rather than marrying a rich person, you could just join some of us navigating UberTherapy:
Join our mailing list to follow our work organizing a MuchBetter.Help here.
Join the Psychotherapy Action Network that actually understands how to navigate UberTherapy. International membership welcome and highly recommended here.
Join the mailing list for those groups that are leading the way in social justice activism such as Healing Justice London.
Join the mailing list for those groups actively organizing platform workers such as Worker Info Exchange.
Join a union. Join more than one union. Join our own Psychotherapy & Counselling Union.
If you are already a PCU member help our recruitment campaign by sending in a 20 second video about why being a member matters.
· Film on your mobile phone in portrait (vertical) mode.
· Tell us why you joined, how the union helped you, why a collective voice matters
· Keep your answer to 15–20 seconds.
· Finish by saying: "Join PCU today."
Please send us your highest quality recording (don't compress it if possible) to Liz Martin via admin@pcunion.org.uk
Follow the story of MuchBetter.Help here
If you’re an UberTherapist join us here