E-therapy apps see booming business since coronavirus pandemic. I gave one a try.

My new therapist seemed wise and compassionate, with her salt-and-pepper bob and sensible glasses. But given we’d never met, how could I know she wasn’t really some guy in a poodle suit, downing Tequila shots while chuckling away at my inner child’s expense?

After all, she (or he) was my texting therapist, hired with Tinder-like ease as I clicked on her photo online. Life is hard, and the psychiatrist who helped me through my tortured early 20s retired, so I figured I’d give it a try.

As it turns out, when I first signed up over the winter I was barely ahead of a wave that is now cresting in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Our new combo of health-related angst and travel restrictions has spurred the uptake of all kinds of e-therapy apps, including BetterHelp, 7 cups and Woebot (“No couches, no meds, no childhood stuff.”)(Also, no humans: Woebot is a chatbot.)

Users of another bot, Wysa, have tripled since covid-19 hit, says co-founder Ramakant Vempati, while managers at Talkspace (“Therapy for how we live today”), who previously boasted 1 million users, say volume is up 25 percent.

“The anxiety out there is at an all-time high — unfortunately,” Talkspace chief medical officer Neil Leibowitz says. He says clients are seeking more help with relationship problems or loneliness, depending on their housing situation, as well as “overwhelming” money worries.

The bright side of all this misery — at least for the e-therapy industry — is that stay-at-home orders are driving more of the uninitiated and even the downright skeptical to conquer the hesitation that Leibowitz described as the biggest previous obstacle to permanent inroads in the market. Once the crisis dies down, he predicted, “some people will go back to face-to-face therapy, but I think a large number will be converted.”