ShareWell wants to scale mental health support with its 10,000 support groups

ShareWell wants to scale mental health support with its 10,000 support groups

a year ago
Anonymous $Gb26S9Emwz

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/06/sharewell-pre-seed/

Therapists — if you can even find one that takes your insurance or new clients — can add a layer of sadness to your wallet even as you’re trying to rectify your own mental health wobbles. ShareWell believes it has an alternate take, with a far more affordable peer-support model, which lands it somewhere between special interest forums and online communities, coaching and therapy. The company’s thesis is that people who are in the same proverbial boat can offer each other support (but, emphatically, not advice!) to alleviate the burden of going at it alone.

“I started ShareWell because peer support really helped me in what was probably the most difficult phase of my life,” said founder and CEO CeCe Cheng in an interview with TechCrunch. “During the pandemic, I was in what I would call an emotionally abusive relationship. I had a therapist I was working with and she was really helpful, but when I was going through it, I didn’t really want to talk to my friends about it. I felt a lot of shame; sometimes even the best-meaning friends couldn’t exactly understand what I was going through.”

ShareWell wants to scale mental health support with its 10,000 support groups

Feb 6, 2023, 10:38pm UTC
https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/06/sharewell-pre-seed/ > Therapists — if you can even find one that takes your insurance or new clients — can add a layer of sadness to your wallet even as you’re trying to rectify your own mental health wobbles. ShareWell believes it has an alternate take, with a far more affordable peer-support model, which lands it somewhere between special interest forums and online communities, coaching and therapy. The company’s thesis is that people who are in the same proverbial boat can offer each other support (but, emphatically, not advice!) to alleviate the burden of going at it alone. > “I started ShareWell because peer support really helped me in what was probably the most difficult phase of my life,” said founder and CEO CeCe Cheng in an interview with TechCrunch. “During the pandemic, I was in what I would call an emotionally abusive relationship. I had a therapist I was working with and she was really helpful, but when I was going through it, I didn’t really want to talk to my friends about it. I felt a lot of shame; sometimes even the best-meaning friends couldn’t exactly understand what I was going through.”