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Comment by textadventure | Hacker News Reader

Sorry to have to be that person but I think it's plainly irresponsible to put yourself in a position to want to help people who are troubled, lost and confused and possibly in need of professional help on which you claim to have no training.

If therapy isn't helping it's generally a matter of a specific therapist who may not be working for you, but psychology is something for which people have studied and trained for years at. The human mind is a complex thing, and being professionally unprepared to deal with people's issues you are potentially at risk of causing harm.

There are already online services like betterhelp.com if people need a professional to talk, and it doesn't have to be something heavy, it could be just about the normal hardships of going through life, family, friendships, love, work, etc.

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I totally understand your point and anticipated there will be pushback like this.

However, from what I've observed, there seems to be a significant lack of actually helpful support and resources for people who fall into these two categories:

1) People who think their problems aren't serious enough to seek therapy

2) People who have seen therapy but haven't gotten much success from it

I'm sorry if my big intro wasn't clear enough and gave the wrong impression. I haven't figured out my elevator pitch yet and that's exactly why I'm here testing things out.

Even if you intend on not charging money or want to keep it available to low income or keep the barrier low, there's a reason that formal standards exist, and to forgo that knowledge because you ostensibly possess "above average intuition and earthy wisdom" seems hopelessly naïve to me.

I would highly advise that you at least be open to the option of undergoing some actual training.

This is a good point. Thanks for that. :)

my thought on this is that it would be good if you at least understand what each of these professions are about so that you can recognize your limitations and understand when the person seeking help needs something more serious that you can't provide.

i think what you want to do is essentially what i would consider being a good but also knowledgeable friend. a good friend tries to help where they can, but not all friends understand what help a person actually needs. for many situations having a good friend is enough, but in some situations the best thing a good friend can do is to say that it's time to seek professional help.

and maybe they already know that they need professional help but don't know how or where to get it. so you can be an intermediary where people can get support for smaller things or be pointed in the right direction if there are serious issues to tackle.

That's a very good point. I'm starting to realize my limitations and am thinking of doing something a bit different. But it's all good food for thought. Thank you all for your constructive feedback!

Even if you triage folks and get them to the correct "professionals", that's a hell of an added value.

I believe billing it as a "Everything else not working? Give us a try!", instead of a first line of support, could also structure the liability in a fair way.

...I even have a couple killer ideas for the name of the non-profit!

If you are serious about helping people, you'd encourage anyone who is feeling lost and confused to seek professional help. If you can facilitate that somehow, provide people with free options, social workers, hot lines, etc, you'd have something of value.

I still think that putting yourself out there to lend an ear to strangers is irresponsible. Because this is not about someone who you've come across in your life and you have a talk and maybe give some advice, you'd be actively encouraging people to talk to you and that's the irresponsible part. Your intentions may be good, but this is not the right way to go about it.

The track record for real therapy is pretty poor and sometimes the answer you get is "go interact with other people." I don't see this being worse than the nothing that is usually available, but it is a pretty weird website to do it on.

According to what do you conclude that the track record for real therapy is pretty poor? Some study or just some subjective perception?

Yes, some study. The success rates for any specific intervention for depression is quite low. It's hard to separate the success of the intervention from acting better for your doctor due to social pressure and simply growing out of the issue.

A ex-depressed successful entrepreneur may be more capable of helping a depressed not successful entrepreneur than a professional therapist. Knowing how to listen someone doesn't give you the qualities to proper advice them besides some abstract behaviors like: "listen more to people", "be more kind to yourself" and the likes.

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