{"id":36041,"date":"2025-10-30T17:26:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=36041"},"modified":"2025-11-03T06:22:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T06:22:53","slug":"study-finds-evidence-that-text-based-therapy-eases-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=36041","title":{"rendered":"Study Finds Evidence That Text-Based Therapy Eases Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A large-scale randomized trial of texting therapy concluded that its outcomes were as good as video sessions in treating depression.<\/p>\n

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One of the most popular mental health innovations of the past decade is therapy via text message, which allows you to dip in and out of treatment in the course of a day. Say you wake up anxious before a presentation: You might text your therapist first thing in the morning to say that you can\u2019t stop visualizing a humiliating failure.<\/p>\n

Three hours later, her response pops up on your phone. She suggests that you label the thought \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m feeling nervous about my presentation\u201d \u2014 and then try to reframe it. She tells you to take a deep breath before deciding what is true in the moment.<\/p>\n

You read her answer between meetings. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure my boss thinks I\u2019m an idiot,\u201d you type. The therapist responds the next morning. \u201cWhat evidence do you have that she thinks that?\u201d she asks. She tells you to write a list of the available evidence, pros and cons.<\/p>\n

Text-based therapy has expanded swiftly over the past decade through digital mental health platforms like BetterHelp and Talkspace, which pair users with licensed therapists and offer both live chat and as-needed texting sessions. A new study<\/a> published on Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open provides early evidence that the practice is effective in treating mild to moderate depression, finding outcomes similar to those of video-based therapy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a clinical trial, 850 adults with mild to moderate depression were randomly assigned to two groups: One group received psychotherapy via a weekly video session; the other received unlimited, as-needed messaging or emailing with a therapist. After 12 weeks, participants in both groups reported similar improvement in depression symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were pleasantly surprised to see that it was as good as weekly video therapy,\u201d said Patricia A. Are\u00e1n, a former professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, of text-based psychotherapy. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really find any differences in the outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A large-scale randomized trial of texting therapy concluded that its outcomes were as good as video sessions in treating depression.One of the most popular mental health innovations of the past decade is therapy via text message, which allows you to dip in and out of treatment in the course of a day. Say you wake up anxious before a presentation: You might text your therapist first thing in the morning to say that you can\u2019t stop visualizing a humiliating failure.Three hours later, her response pops up on your phone. She suggests that you label the thought \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m feeling nervous about my presentation\u201d \u2014 and then try to reframe it. She tells you to take a deep breath before deciding what is true in the moment.You read her answer between meetings. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure my boss thinks I\u2019m an idiot,\u201d you type. The therapist responds the next morning. \u201cWhat evidence do you have that she thinks that?\u201d she asks. She tells you to write a list of the available evidence, pros and cons.Text-based therapy has expanded swiftly over the past decade through digital mental health platforms like BetterHelp and Talkspace, which pair users with licensed therapists and offer both live chat and as-needed texting sessions. A new study published on Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open provides early evidence that the practice is effective in treating mild to moderate depression, finding outcomes similar to those of video-based therapy.In a clinical trial, 850 adults with mild to moderate depression were randomly assigned to two groups: One group received psychotherapy via a weekly video session; the other received unlimited, as-needed messaging or emailing with a therapist. After 12 weeks, participants in both groups reported similar improvement in depression symptoms.\u201cWe were pleasantly surprised to see that it was as good as weekly video therapy,\u201d said Patricia A. Are\u00e1n, a former professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, of text-based psychotherapy. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really find any differences in the outcomes.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36043,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36044,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36041\/revisions\/36044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}