By Krishna Gomatam

Headspace announced on April 23rd that they are rolling out a text-based mental health coaching service directly to consumers, a service they had previously only offered through health care plans and employers. They also announced that they will be rolling out direct-to-consumer therapy services on their app later in 2024. These additions to Headspaces’s core mental health services and resources thrust them into competition with numerous other companies in the space, including BetterHelp and Talkspace.

Headspace has been one of the biggest names in the digital mental health space for the past several years. Starting off in 2010 as an app with mental health resources, guided meditations, and mindfulness exercises, the company broadened their scope in 2021 with their $3 billion merger with Ginger. The merger saw Headspace adding mental health coaching and therapy/psychiatry services for their health plan and employer customers. This next step – extending their text-based mental health coaching directly to individual consumers – brings Headspace into a new realm of competition and inches them closer to becoming a truly holistic mental healthcare platform.

Mental health coaches are professionals who (but unlike therapists and psychiatrists) do not make diagnoses, provide clinical treatment, or prescribe medications. Psychiatrists and therapists generally have more stringent requirements to become certified, often including an advanced mental health degree.

Headspace however, has their own set of requirements for their certified mental health coaches, ensuring that only highly qualified individuals are working with their customers. All Headspace mental health coaches have either completed the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) Approved Training Program or have earned a Master’s-level degree in a psychology related field. Additionally, Headspace ensures that all of their coaches have at least two years of relevant work experience, 200+ hours of supervised training, and participate in weekly continuing education training offered through the Headspace Training Institute’s Mental Health Coach Training Program.

The digital mental health space has boomed in the past decade. Many new players entered the fray in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when isolation levels were high and the demand for remotely deliverable mental health interventions rose. While not a perfect substitute for synchronous treatment and care, digital healthcare has proven to be effective. In his paper titled “Real world effectiveness of digital mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic”, Maximo Prescott, MPH, concludes that digital mental health services have been “effective in improving subjective well-being and clinical improvement in depressive symptoms.”

The rise of digital mental health solutions has revealed the large demand for remote therapy, psychiatry, and mental health coaching. It has also revealed some glaring shortcomings in the country’s mental healthcare infrastructure. Roughly 1 in 3 people live in areas where there is a shortage of mental healthcare professionals, which may help explain why digital solutions took off so quickly when introduced.

Mental healthcare has simultaneously become a more sought-after employee benefit for job searchers, and several companies are racing to become the go-to mental healthcare solution for employers and healthcare plans. BetterHelp, Talkspace, and Cerebral are among the big names that have had the most success as therapy and psychiatry providers, while Headspace has been a juggernaut for general mental wellness, stress relief, and well-being. What Headspace lacked prior to its 2021 merger with Ginger was a direct service connecting mental health professionals and consumers; and what it lacked until last Tuesday was this service being available to individual consumers using Headspace without an employer or health plan.

Headspace will start their pricing for mental health coaching at $99.99 per month for three 30-minute sessions with a mental health coach ($33.33 per half-hour session).