 Welcome to the Anxious Morning, where each weekday morning we take a look at ideas, concepts, and lessons designed to help you understand and overcome your anxiety. For more information, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com. Let's take a few minutes this morning to talk about the important differences between social media and therapy or actual mental health treatment of any kind. I know that we are sadly in an environment where finding a therapist, especially one qualified and experienced in the treatment of anxiety disorders is a real challenge for many people across the world. Social media sometimes plays a valuable role in the mental health community, but sometimes social media is used as a replacement or substitute for therapy, which is not a good thing. And here are a few reasons why. Social media influencers and content creators get rewarded when they drop boundaries, interact excessively, and never take time off. This is not healthy. This can lead an influencer or content creator into situations where they are creating content only for the sake of algorithms and not for the good of the consumer. A burnt out mental health influencer that creates mental health content just to get something out there so they don't lose followers can be harmful. A therapist or counselor by comparison is trained in setting healthy boundaries, taking care of themselves, and steering clear of burnout or overwhelm. A healthy helper is better equipped to actually help you. Therapists are trained to follow professional ethical guidelines. The credentials they hold are contingent upon following these ethics and best practices. It's all designed to protect you and the helper. Maintaining a safe and supportive space for everyone is vital. Social media influencers and content creators can say anything they want for any reason without professional consequence. And no matter what anyone says on Instagram in a pastel-colored graphic or supportive sounding reel, the internet is not a safe space and never has been. Social media influencers are there to capture and hold your attention, then to do that again and again by whatever means are necessary. Therapists are there to interact with you one-on-one in an intimate relationship based on trust, confidentiality, and safety. Attention does not enter into it. There is no affinity-based algorithm influencing your relationship with a therapist or counselor. The relationship is based on your well-being and very little else. A therapist works for you and is ethically bound to protect your best interests. You, or your healthcare payer, compensate a therapist or counselor for the work they do. They are rewarded financially for helping you, or at least trying to help you. A social media influencer is paid or otherwise compensated by others. They have a vested interest in satisfying needs that are not necessarily in line with yours. The income of an online influencer is based on how effectively they can grab and hold your attention and how effectively they can get you to spend money on particular goods or services. This has nothing whatsoever to do with your well-being or actual mental health, which are non-factors in the equation that leads to money for that influencer. Now, I can go on. There are issues that revolve around knowledge, training, supervision, scalability, and even motive. But the lesson here is that while social media can be helpful, you must always consider the source of the material you are consuming, and you must evaluate its appropriateness based on the concerns I've shared above. Look, there are plenty of exceptional, kind-hearted, well-meaning, and well-informed social media content creators in our mental health space. But that's not the whole space by any stretch of the imagination. One look at my email and my social media inboxes will confirm that while in your eyes, I may be a source of education and empowerment, in the eyes of a long list of companies selling questionable anxiety-related products, I am a quick path into your wallet if I wanted to be. That is a sobering reality that you really should remain aware of. If you're enjoying the anxious morning and you'd like to get a copy of the podcast delivered into your email inbox every morning, visit TheAnxiousMorning.email and subscribe to the newsletter. If you're listening on Apple or iTunes, take a second and leave a five-star rating, maybe write a small review, it really helps me out. And finally, if you find my work useful and you'd like to help keep it free of advertising and sponsorships, you can see all the ways to support the work at TheAnxiousTruth.com slash support. Thanks so much.