285 - Steve Duke, Part 1 - The Dilemma of Venture Capital and Tech Platforms vs Quality of Care in the Therapy Field
“Ultimately, people don't wanna see a therapist. People want to get better. People want to be healed. They want the outcome, and to get the outcome, you need quality.” - Steve Duke
How are y’all doing while the United States (specifically) plummets into political, social, and economic freefall? Therapists are freaking tf out right with good reason. We're at a tipping point in the evolution of our field, especially when it comes to the rapid ascendancy of venture capital, consolidation, and technology––those AI chatbots lurking and learning in the digital shadows.
I sound the alarm not to incite panic but to encourage resistance. We don’t have to bow down to the homogeneity of late-stage capitalism. We do have to recalibrate outdated modes of operation and revamp our self-care strategies if we hope to continue providing quality service.
Steve Duke is one of the bright minds I turn to for data-driven inspiration and motivation. He founded The Hemingway Group, a business working with mental health organizations to help them succeed clinically and commercially. He’s parlayed his experiences at McKinsey and two unicorn startups to help leaders scale mental health innovations. The Hemingway Report provides insights and community for those driving change in the mental health field.
“I think people are gonna really start to prioritize quality,” Steve asserts, adding, “That's where small businesses can really differentiate themselves.” I agree! We spent the first half of our conversation laying the groundwork for excellence. The work, of course, begins internally, addressing our mental health challenges before we start seeing clients or reestablishing support where it may have lapsed due to overwhelm.
Self-care and peer support aren’t major line items for Big Tech, and it shows! Profit over performance appears to be their only metric. “We had a couple of very large companies who got significant amounts of funding to provide therapy platforms,” says Steve, referring to Talkspace and Better Help. ‘What they did was put a lot of that money into marketing.” And not much else.
All is not lost, however. “I'm starting to see a reaction to that current environment,” observes Steve. “Therapists are pissed off at their situation. They want more financial stability [and] better working conditions to do the kind of work they’re interested in on their terms.”
In part two of our conversation, Steve and I delve into the wonder and worry surrounding AI.
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Steve Duke (he/him) is the founder of The Hemingway Group - a business working with mental health organisations to help them succeed clinically and commercially. He also writes an industry publication called The Hemingway Report, which is read by thousands of mental health operators and clinicians each week.
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