Stories of UberTherapy
“After a decade of researching the therapy industry I have finally formulated the elevator pitch for UberTherapy – ‘The Datafication of Despair: The extraction industry that games reality and offers magic solutions to the problems you never had’. I am supposed to feel happier than this.
The occupational hazard of researching UberTherapy is the rising panic at the size and speed of the uberization process taking place in the therapy sector. I have the feeling of being hurled around on a fairground ride, between the audacious game that is being played with our mental health and what I have come to see as the corrupted intention behind it…
As the exaggerated claims of digital health technologies become absorbed into our culture, I find myself in a hall of mirrors, distorted by an idea of therapy I know not to be true, offering therapeutic unicorns and guaranteed recovery from being myself. Looking into the digital mirror, I wonder at whether I am having an AI hallucination where the therapy Large Language Models and their generative AI offer an instant way out of seeing myself as I really am…
I have the sickening feeling of being sat at the top of a broken Ferris wheel, excited by the panoramic view but without a clue how to get down to the ground safely, deregulated by the thuggish neglectful violence of the system I now see in Angerland.”
Hosted by The Relational School on Friday 5 June 7-8.30pm this online event opens up a discussion about the ‘uberization’ of therapeutic practice, the business models behind it and the emerging political fault lines for therapists. Using as its starting point the book UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health (Bristol University Press, 2025) the author, Elizabeth Cotton, Jumanah Younis and Claudia Coussins will together explore the narratives and the politics of digital therapy and the collective challenges that lie ahead for therapeutic work in the face of widespread platformization. Thinking about the generational splits in the digital therapy debates for consumers and practitioners, the event will think about whether other people are a waste of time in defending the deep work of therapy and the what next in the story of UberTherapy.
To reserve your place at The Relational School go here
To read about UberTherapy go here
To buy the book go here
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Elizabeth Cotton (she/her) is a writer and educator in the field of industrial relations and mental health and is Associate Professor for Responsible Business at the University of Leicester. She has trained and worked as a psychotherapist in the UK’s NHS and has had lots of therapy. She comes from a trade union background, working as head of education for a global union federation in the extractive industries and founded Surviving Work which explores whether it’s possible to do that including her book Surviving Work in Healthcare: Helpful stuff for people on the frontline (Gower, 2018). Her book UberTherapy: The new business of mental health is published by Bristol University Press in 2025.
Jumanah Younis (they/them) is a freelance writer and therapist currently working in private practice. They are interested in anti-oppressive approaches to psychotherapy and how we understand the body in relationship. Jumanah was a frontline worker in gender-based violence charities for over five years and has a background in feminist organising against cuts to services. They have written for the LRB blog, the Guardian and Red Pepper magazine on feminism and popular movements against neoliberalism. Their review of UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health is forthcoming in Radical Philosophy (Spring 2026).
Claudia Coussins (She/her) is a psychotherapist interested in wellbeing, care and justice. Alongside her clinical work in private and community settings she conducts research and teaching. Her intention is to co-create therapeutic spaces where people can heal, (un)learn and disrupt normative narratives about mental health and nurture more expansive experiences of wellbeing.
About UberTherapy
UberTherapy is the essential guide to the rise of digital therapy for anyone working in, researching or using mental health services. This timely book explores the emerging uberization of therapy through algorithmic control, datafication of despair and attrition by design. Analyzing the deployment of e-commerce business models the book makes a compelling case that the rise of “therapeutic Tinder” offers new consumers of therapy a way to avoid the deep and uncomfortable work of therapy. UberTherapy offers a defence for the irreplaceable value of human therapists and a roadmap for preserving the legacies of real therapy in the digital world.
“A must-read for all therapists right across the professional field, spurious hierarchies and all. Democracy, free expression, intelligence and passion radiate from every page. Simply the best defence and championing of ‘real therapy’ in the face of a plethora of cheap substitutes, whether the state organised juggernaut or rapacious free enterprise offered on a retail basis. And clients and patients might also want to see what they are getting themselves into these days. Over the last years, Elizabeth Cotton has emerged as the best chronicler of what is wrong in the therapy world – and also a beacon of hope that things might improve. The style of writing is punchy and humorous, and I hope the book gets the readership it deserves.”
Professor Andrew Samuels, author of The Political Psyche and former Chair of the UK Council for Psychotherapy
"A powerful, well-informed and deeply personal treatise which deepens our understanding of therapy industry and 'the new business of mental health'. An exceptional intervention in exceptionally challenging times."
Jason Arday, University of Cambridge
"An important and engaging contribution that critically evaluates the commercialization of mental health and how emotional management and self-help are generating new problems in our personal and working lives."
Miguel Martínez Lucio, University of Manchester
“UberTherapy traces the roots of our current public mental health crisis to two interlinked forces that emerged at the end of the first decade of this century: public austerity and the rise of mobile technology platforms. In their wake, public mental health care delivered by qualified professionals has been steadily overtaken by AI-driven therapies — a model of creeping privatisation, datafication, financialisation, and commercialisation. We now inhabit a world of mental health care where we know the ‘dynamic price’ of everything, but the intrinsic value of nothing — where community, patient and workers' rights are displaced by the illusion of a technology-aided recovery. Elizabeth Cotton teaches us that the future of care lies not in a Silicon Valley fantasy, but in solidarity: the collective power to demand and create the much better help we all deserve.”
James Farrar, Worker Info Exchange
“The field of therapy, however you define it, is overflowing with books. Many are informative some excellent but what they all have in common is specialism and invitations to join specific club perspectives. What is rare is that Elizabeth Cotton has not fallen into this trap but has the wit and courage to present matters in a wider perspective as evidenced by her new book UberTherapy. l strongly recommend this book to all who wish to retain a free enough state of mind in life and work.”
Anton Obholzer, Psychoanalyst, Psychiatrist and Former CEO of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
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