4 Best Practices for Fact Checking #InstaTherapy Content
Mental health is a popular topic on social media.
And because mental health care can often be inaccessible for a number of reasons (finances, insurance barriers, location, family/community culture, etc.) that can be a great thing–talking about mental health openly can help to destigmatize the need for care, and to normalize the idea that we all have things to work on.
But there are a few dangers to relying on social media exclusively for mental health care:
There’s no factual requirement for posting on social media–meaning the mental health information you’re getting, might not be accurate.
That doesn’t mean there’s no good information out there on social media–Hope+Wellness is on Instagram where we share bite sized posts from topics we’ve covered on the blog, and we follow plenty of other mental health professionals on that platform who are doing great work! It just means you need to have a bit of care when taking in content related to mental health.
So what can you do to vet how reliable a mental health resource is on social media?
First ask: Who is the source of this information?
What are their qualifications? Are they a licensed provider? Are they actively practicing? Is their license bound to any sort of ethics board?
Qualified resources will have their credentials listed publicly. Their qualifications/license type should be either:
Listed in their account bio
Stated clearly on the website linked in their account bio
If you can’t find credentials listed in their account bio, click over to their website to check the home and about pages. Credentials should be easy to find and where you expect them to be–if they are hidden away somewhere that you have to dig for, that’s a warning sign.
Next: Is what they’re sharing within their scope of practice?
What sort of mental health professional are they? What is their area of expertise and scope of practice? Is the information they are sharing within that scope–or is it unrelated to what they are professionally qualified for?
For example, mental health professionals shouldn’t be giving the advice of a primary care doctor and vice versa.
Qualified mental health care professionals should also be making it clear on their profiles that their online presence is intended as therapeutic education, not a replacement for the treatment they offer or a method of seeking diagnosis.
Check the comments:
While this isn’t always helpful, it’s good to do a quick glance through comments of popular mental health content on social media. If others in the industry are disputing the information in the comments, that’s a good sign to proceed with caution; look up what’s being shared and read more information on it from reputable sources.
Check in: do they get specific about clients?
Talking about common concerns from the general clients or population they see is one thing–that can be helpful in destigmatizing care or addressing misconceptions, etc. But no mental health professional should be describing their client cases or bragging about their client successes as a way to prove their legitimacy.
If you’re questioning how specific they are, consider if the person they were talking about found the content; would they be able to identify themselves as the subject of the content? If so–it’s too specific, and actually a HIPAA violation. That’s a big red warning sign that they aren’t considering how their ethical practices need to be translated to social media!
Keep these best practices in mind when engaging with mental health content on social media:
Be selective with who you follow: take your time to check their credentials and make sure they’re creating content within the scope of their practice
Consider each post on it’s own–don’t just assume something is factual because it’s from a source you followed
Use information shared as a jumping off point; go further with resources they provide or begin to look into the topic from other reputable and reliable sources
Bring up anything you’re unsure about with your therapist!
Starting therapy can be overwhelming. How do you know therapy will be helpful? How do you find a therapist that’s right for you? What should you prepare for, in your first session? How much of therapy takes place in therapy, and how much work will you have to do outside of your one on one time? These are common questions, and we want to help you feel informed and prepared.