Therapists are on TikTok. And how does that make you feel?

Quand les thérapeutes s’inscrivent sur TikTok.

Face à la montée des problèmes de santé mentale chez les jeunes, des psychologues et psychiatres américains ont décidé de s'inscrire sur TikTok. Sur la plateforme, ils enseignent les bases de la psychologie au travers de courtes vidéos ludiques, qui connaissent souvent un franc succès. Mais leurs conseils ont-ils une réelle valeur thérapeutique ? Rencontre avec quelques-uns de ces professionnels.

Welcome to therapy TikTok, where a steady stream of mental health professionals are trying to meet an anxious generation of young people where they are on social media. Gone are the softvoiced analysts perched beside tissue boxes and a couch. These shrinks hit a milly rock while listing signs of unhealthy boundaries, demonstrate an anxiety relief technique to 1. steady constant, régulier / stream flux / health santé / social media réseaux sociaux / soft doux / couch canapé / shrink "psy" / to hit, hit, hit ici, faire, danser / milly rock danse inventée par le rappeur américain 2 Milly et largement reprise sur les réseaux sociaux / unhealthy malsain, toxique / boundary limite, frontière / relief soulagement, apaisement / a trending Saweetie rap and wiggle their hips while explaining symptoms of dissociation.

2. Limited to 60 seconds, these videos strain to offer context or elaborate, instead offering easy digestible answers to big questions: “What is intergenerational trauma?” “What are healthy ways to express rage”

3. Mental health content has flourished on the app during a year when “everyone’s been high-functioning depressed,” said Micheline Maalouf, a licensed therapist in Orlando who has 1 million followers under the username @mashmushe. And while therapists have gained popularity on Instagram and YouTube in the past, TikTok offers a more immediate sense of intimacy.

THERAPY GOES VIRAL 4. Shani Tran, a licensed clinical counselor in Minneapolis, created her account @theshaniproject in January 2020 to post videos of herself dancing. Then she started posting about therapy. A video she made about what it’s like to have a Black therapist went viral. “Can you be my therapist?” commenters asked. “Do you do virtual sessions?" “The notifications just kept coming,” Tran said. “I remember feeling a little overwhelmed.”

5. While an influx of followers can be confusing for therapists who are just looking to let off a little steam online, some view it as an opportunity to expand their client base. Marquis Norton, a licensed professional counselor in Hampton Roads, posts under the TikTok account @drnortontherapy. He started his account in February. By summer, he had 100,000 followers. He thinks of his social media accounts as marketing for his private practice.

6. “What’s concerning, I think for everybody, is oversimplification,” said Lisa Hen

derson, a licensed professional counselor. She worries that on TikTok, where videos are necessarily short, mental health treatments can be presented as quick, easy fixes, instead of “a long slog of hard work.” “It can be misleading,” she said, “more so than intentionally harmful.”

7. Therapists need to be careful to urge patients to not self-diagnose, Tracy said. The tips she offers online are educational, she stressed, not diagnostic.

CREATING BOUNDARIES 8. Some popular creators establish strict boundaries for people seeking out their practice. Lindsay Fleming, a licensed professional counselor with over 393,000 followers, asks potential clients who say they know her from TikTok to see a different clinician at the private practice she runs in Park Ridge, Illinois.

9. To avoid legal and ethical concerns, therapists on TikTok often do not accept direct messages, and some don’t respond to comments on their videos — even when they receive a barrage of requests. Tracy gets tagged in videos of teenagers recording their parents yelling at them and TikToks in which people share their traumas. “The magnitude of suffering that I become aware of every day is very overwhelming,” she said.

10. For therapists who suddenly find themselves with a massive online following, the pressure can feel constraining. In late January 2020, a few weeks after Maalouf, the Orlando-based therapist, put her first video on TikTok, she posted a clip of herself sitting on the couch in her office, legs crossed. “I’m here as an adult on TikTok,” the text above her reads, “… and also a therapist.” That night, her phone kept buzzing.

11. When she woke up, she stared at her phone and did a double take. She had gained 80,000 new followers. Maalouf has become increasingly diligent about how she presents her content. “I can’t make mistakes,” she said. “I can’t half-ass it.”

12. Sometimes she channels those emotions when making videos, knowing that content on anxiety tends to resonate with her audience. Her recent tutorial on how to soothe a panic attack — holding ice in your hands, repeating “I’m safe.” — has over 75,000 views, and is flooded with comments. “I wish my therapist sounded as patient and calming as you do,” one reads. Another asks about anxiety attacks at night. Maalouf’s response: “Check out my previous video!”

Mental health content has flourished on the app during a year when many of us have been more depressed than usual.