This week I am talking to Vittoria Lecomte (@VittoriaLecomte), CEO of Sesh (@seshgroups) a virtual group support platform that is helping address the mental health crisis and shortage of therapists.
Vittoria shares her own personal struggles with an eating disorder and the difficulty in obtaining therapy that worked and how she found group therapy and how difficult finding this was. This was a clear need and became the foundation of Sesh.
Group therapy is probably best known in the addiction space with Alcoholics Anonymous. But the concept of group therapy has been successfully used in many areas but the lack of therapists and the challenge of access have limited this till now.
Sesh has created easily accessible group sessions for a wide range of areas including parenting, anxiety, depression, relationships, and trauma, and is demonstrating incredible success based on the feedback from their clients.
Listen in to hear what critical elements contribute to success in their therapy and hear the incredible reductions in depression and anxiety they are showing from a relatively small number of sessions
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Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
And today I’m delighted to be welcoming Victoria Lecomte. She is the CEO of sesh. Victoria, thanks for joining me.
Vittoria Lecomte
Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to chat with you today.
Nick van Terheyden
So as I do with all my guests, I like to get a little bit of context. And if you would tell us how you arrived at this point in your career, and specifically, you know, what led to this concept and this idea of sesh.
Vittoria Lecomte
Sure, so the founding story of sashes, kind of a personal one, where I experienced the benefit, the value of therapists led support groups, when I was an inpatient treatment for an eating disorder. And so after years of working on solving this problem through individualized one to one therapy, I finally ended up in a more acute, acute inpatient setting where I was introduced to the group modality and that’s what ultimately led to my recovery. And so Sasha exists to bring therapists led groups to the masses and more of a an earlier and earlier entry point into a previously difficult to find difficult to fake pay for and navigate modality that I think, can certainly meet the need of so many more people that are seeking out seeking out therapy.
Nick van Terheyden
And, you know, just for for the listener, I think it’s important to understand the context of this. So when you say, you know, you found the benefit of this, this was it in a journey of trying to sort of solve this problem that you had struggled or failed to solve. And it was really the contribution of the group element of this that really started to change the course of your challenges.
Vittoria Lecomte
Yeah, I think what the biggest thing for me was seeing other people that were going through something similar, but not only just people that, you know, I knew that other people had eating disorders at the time, right. But it was that personal connection that I made, and kind of the sense of respect that I had for other people that I was engaging within this group, where I was like, Oh, my gosh, these other people that I, I am interacting with that I think, have, you know, their own, like their own. They’re real people that I’m able to sort of see and feel and understand. That’s when it kind of clicked for me that I am, of course not, I’m not alone in real time, I’m really not alone. And what I’m going through is not shameful at all. It’s and so that that was the real power of groups, for me was real time exposure to other people in my shoes.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, I think important to understand and, you know, forgive me if I get this wrong, you may know this better. But for most people, when they think about group therapy, I would imagine that they think about Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the primary interaction points where people get together in a combined forum, and it’s led it has a specific program. Is that the name version that has existed through time? Or are there other examples of that?
Vittoria Lecomte
Yeah, there’s, there’s that there’s, there’s alcohol, or there’s Narcotics Anonymous there. But I would say that the addiction space has kind of made a name for themselves of of leveraging this modality in a way that over time has gained a lot, a lot of kind of respect, and a large following of people that lean on those types of group communities. For many, many years, I think the biggest difference in what what sessions per what session is doing and what exists in the specifically the addiction space is all of our groups are led by therapists, so they’re not peer led groups, which is which provides an additional sense of quality control and I suppose, you know, safety, psychological group safety that you can, you can count on with a licensed and trained therapist at the helm. I would say that, you know, the group support I think has has its own identity that really stems from a lot of these Alcoholics Anonymous groups that some of which are amazing, but many of which are, you know, take place in person in rickety chairs in in in a YMCA and Well, that there’s, well that’s terrific for a lot of people, there’s, you know, there’s a, there’s a more approachable way to do that that’s frankly, more not only more approachable, but also like literally easier to get to in a virtual space. And that’s where, you know, a digital group led by therapists comes in. And another benefit of the digital space is the ability to not be seen walking into one of these community centers, may you may not want to be seen interacting with, with, with folks that are that identify in a certain way or are self prone, have a self proclaimed problem like an addiction. And so that’s where the privacy and anonymity that we provide our users really comes into comes into play.
Nick van Terheyden
You know, and it’s interesting, you talk about this specifically. So you know, the fact that it’s led by therapists, you know, some difference, obviously, these are in person groups, I think one of the things that you’ve talked about was the challenge specifically. So as I said earlier, you know, that narcotic space or addiction space, you know, better known, maybe there’s more of that, perhaps more accessible, but outside of that, it’s really been relatively thin pickings to access this kind of therapy, despite clear value proposition is that what sort of drove you to start to develop this?
Vittoria Lecomte
Yes, and in addition to the lower cost, the that, in theory, the unit economics that allows for more people to engage in this type of professionally led care for a lower price. So you have people that are currently have the option of paying hundreds of dollars per therapy session, even, you know, dozens of dollars, plus with insurance as a copay per session. And at scale, when you need support maybe multiple times a week or more, that’s not a real option that doesn’t become like a realistic option for people to to attain, you know, therapists, lead professional mental health support. And so what can what can the group modality do in addition to, you know, this beautiful, you know, empathy of, of others in their group in your group and feeling like you’re not alone, it can also provide the group participant with professionally led support, therapists exposure and interaction for a literal fraction of the cost, which is another reason why I wanted to bring this, bring this into the forefront of people’s options.
Nick van Terheyden
So I increasingly making it accessible using technology. And, you know, there’s a part of me here we are in in 2023. And I go well, that this is obvious, why didn’t we do this before, but obviously, you know, that wasn’t the case, it wasn’t available, you’ve developed a solution that essentially virtualizes puts in place is a community for different diseases, different challenges, I imagine, and then brings that together and makes it accessible. Can you tell us a little bit about the journey to that point?
Vittoria Lecomte
That yeah, the journey, the journey. So I started the company a little bit before COVID, actually, and it became really clear, really early that large cohorts of people that wanted to talk about really specific topics, were wanting to go to groups led by therapist weekly, and they were wanting to pay for it, and they were wanting to go, you know, get have more time together and build, you know, build relationships one another with one another. And, and, and, and that’s when I kind of understood very early that this is something that’s literally in the words of our earliest users not available anywhere else. So how can we scale that? How can we bring more bespoke groups with really rich topics for different communities? To people who, who need them, and of course, those who were willing to pay for them too. And so quickly, you know, work to bring this to as many platforms as possible. So we currently work with our with with iOS, Android and have a web app It’s available to all of our users. But it became really evident that people wanted space to interact with other people that were going through similar circumstances. And so we’ve worked to build a really kind of, Brett a wide breadth of sessions that meet on a recurring basis to give people those opportunities to connect with one another on different topics. And those topics, you know, stem from parenting, to, you know, Postpartum Support, grief, anxiety, depression, relationship with food or eating, binge eating, you know, your relationship with your, with your partner, your relationship with work, and the stress that is involved with, with all of those things, that’s topic worthy and worthy of people wanting to interact and share their stories, one of our most popular sessions quite early on was a was a group that was unpacking a lot of the stress and anxiety that that comes along with, with with leaving a narcissistic relationship. This and so, you know, we just kept on multiplying the types of groups that we had, and holding a commitment to our users to provide them with as many options for as many different things as they were going through, as we we could provide. And so continuing to scale, our therapists network of amazing licensed therapists that have a group group training, that are trained in the session modality of it’s sort of the digital modality and can facilitate these groups, week over week has been something that’s been key to the scale, meeting the scale of of our growing user base, as well as continuing to, you know, commit to a higher high quality standard of of these groups as we as we grow and sell to consumers, but also to to enterprise.
Nick van Terheyden
So for those of you just joining, I’m Dr. Nick the incrementalist today I’m talking to Victoria Lecomte. She is the CEO and founder of sash, we were just talking about the expansion of the various groups that have started to emerge from this platform of virtualized environment of group therapy led by therapists. And you know, as I’m listening to you, I’m thinking that this must have come not only for the people on the receiving end, those folks looking for it, there were obviously a demand. But I imagine also for the therapist, because we’re not awash with therapists able to lead this this is obviously allowed for an extension. And I imagine perhaps, more nationally, or is there’s still problems with licensure over boundaries, and those kind of how are you managing all of that?
Vittoria Lecomte
That’s a great question. So we are providing our users with therapists led group support. And so because we’re not group therapy, we there’s no clinical note taking, or you know, diagnoses, we are able to not only interact with users across state lines, but of course, we’re able to onboard and and interact with with groups made up of people from across the world.
Nick van Terheyden
That’s fantastic. So you tell us a little bit about the logistics that sits behind here. So is this a essentially a published set of sessions that people can sign up for is the on demand? I mean, I’m thinking through the pandemic, you must have seen a spike in sort of you describe the one for your most popular the stress with narcissists leaving a narcissistic relationship. But I’m thinking that the might have been even more than that, you know, stress with isolation possibly. Did you? How did you match your demand? And how do you sort of create that?
Vittoria Lecomte
So we, we program our sessions, based on three main, main main ways. One is user generated content, these are things that our users are coming to search for. So you can the vast majority of our users will not vast majority, but I would say about 40% of our users come to sesh with wanting wanting to treat their depression. second in line is stress and anxiety. And so we know what people are coming to us for and so we’re able to meet meet the demand. Pretty pretty quickly. The second is, is just ongoing data of the most most attended session, so I didn’t mention mention In the narcissistic session, but in general are more are more general sessions have to do with stress, anxiety and depression and then third, and trauma as well broadly. And then third, we’re able to, because we’re working with therapists that are super passionate about the group modality, but also often are meeting with individualized their one to one clients on a regular basis, they kind of have their ear to the ground on what’s what’s most sought after in terms of topics and themes, if you will have what folks are going through broadly. And so we’re able to, to leverage our amazing therapists network to not only put sessions on our calendar that are in line with their passions of what they would like to hold space for, but also are in line with what they’re seeing on the individualized therapy level and of what folks are going through broadly.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, so, you know, broad set of sessions, you know, different approach, I imagine that, you know, particularly there’s virtualized things, something that you can’t do in person is you can almost be anonymous, I mean, you can not show your screen, potentially just talk and there’s some opportunities there, I think it has it expanded the capabilities of this modality.
Vittoria Lecomte
So we do have the, we do offer the option in our app to create a pseudonym alongside of your account. And, of course, you know, your individual data, regardless would never be shared with with, with, with other group members or with for the therapist themselves on, you know, but we have, we, you, you reserve the right to create whatever pseudonym you’d like, which shows up on your screen, we do, you know, you, you, you have the option to turn off your video, we do ask that folks kind of as a buy in as like a group standard do have their video on our sessions are capped at 10 people, so there’s never going to be some sort of massive webinar where you’re sort of speaking your deepest, darkest secrets to a huge audience, these are really safe groups of folks that are bought into the group standards that go out prior. And and, you know, you can be rest you can, you can feel confident that no individualized data is is shared about you. Even your real identity, right, so you can keep that as private as you’d like, even even while interacting with these groups, and that has, I think, changed the, that has kind of created an opportunity for a lot of people that are unwilling to go to a physical space to for a group like this, that are unwilling to sort of spark up a relationship with an individual with a with a therapist, because of the shame and stigma that goes along with it. So if if you are able to enter a group, where you know that other people are in your shoes, and you don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to associate your, your, your your identity with with your, you know, the support group that you’re going to, it opens up a huge door for a lot of people who aren’t engaging in other types of mental health support. And that’s, that’s where sash comes in, to kind of bridge the gap between where people aren’t getting help, whether it’s from stigma or price or both.
Nick van Terheyden
So, you know, you’ve been in use for a number of years now, you’ve got a large user base, I imagine that that sort of generates some interesting insights that are potentially broader than people might be able to gather in a single session. What uh, what do you see coming out of that? What are the learning points from all of this experience?
Vittoria Lecomte
So there’s plenty of learnings. I think the biggest thing and the most exciting thing lately is how we are able to reliably say that, you know, we have proven continued anxiety and depression improvement for folks who go to more and more sessions. So what I mean by that is, after three sessions, for example, you were you know, on average over 5000 of respondents on these on you know, self reported anxiety and feelings of anxiety and depression. In data, there, they’re seeing a 28% decrease in their feeling of depression and a 30% decrease in their feeling of anxiety. And this continues after six sessions. And then this continues after nine sessions, after nine sessions, you know, this is based on, again, 5000, over 5000, you know, data points of of this after nine sessions, we’re seeing our users are seeing a 67% decrease in feelings of depression and a 67%, decrease in feelings of anxiety. And so we’re seeing that not only is the group modality and, and the session, you know, these sessions groups, creating value for people, it’s creating more and more value over time. And that’s, that’s really exciting to us. And, and I’m really proud of that.
Nick van Terheyden
That’s fantastic. I mean, that’s, that’s, those are not small numbers, to be clear, highly significant. You know, I think, envy of many therapies to be able to achieve that level of success. As you think about the future and where the opportunities lie. Where do you see all of this going?
Vittoria Lecomte
I see sesh being an option at the earliest point of your therapeutic journey. I see sesh being an option for a lot of folks that that, you know, are employed by large organizations that that have that have benefits and, and this, this can and will be one of them. And I see, you know, a lot of a lot more understanding broadly of the benefits of the group modality in the mainstream.
Nick van Terheyden
Would it be possible I mean, right now, I think what you said was that this is mostly paid for out of the individuals pocket, right, this is a activity that people have to buy into. It’s obviously, there’s lots of folks that are signed up. But is this something that we might see perhaps included in benefits that might be covered as part of? I mean, it seems like a perfect, there’s not a drug on this planet that gets to 60% reduction in depression and anxiety, at least not one that I know. I mean, that’s extraordinary. Shouldn’t we be paying for this out of, you know, benefits? Or?
Vittoria Lecomte
We absolutely should. And, and we are and so Sasha is working with some of the largest employers in the United States to provide this as a benefit to their employees. And we’re seeing a lot of interest in demand from organizations that have diverse employee bases that have folks with diverse needs, because how can you, you know, meet the needs of so many different people? Well, we have programming for a wide, wide variety of different folks in different communities. And so sesh is a natural option for a lot of these organizations, especially those whose employees don’t necessarily feel heard or appreciated. And so again, we’re seeing a lot of interest from organizations that are unionizing, or their employees are unionizing. And this is kind of meeting a lot of our mission, where it where it is to provide space for individuals to feel like they’re not alone period. And so that’s, that’s been exciting for us. And we’re, we’re, you know, we’re excited to work with work with a lot of these organizations, too.
Nick van Terheyden
So I think, overall, exciting times, there’s, you know, huge expansion, clearly, demand is outstripping supply in this space. I mean, there’s no question based on the pandemic and some of the metrics that we see that, you know, there’s huge challenges. You touched on some of this with the unionization and, you know, the employer employee difficulties. And here’s a native option that allows for opportunity for employees to have a confidential discussion support group but virtualized, so easily accessible, you know, that would head off a lot of the healthcare costs that we know, you know, cause all sorts of issues in performance and attendance, all of those things. And I think, you know, huge potential and an exciting time. So, unfortunately, as we do each and every week, we’ve run out of time, so it just remains for me to thank you, Victoria, for joining me on the show, Victoria. Thanks for joining me.
Vittoria Lecomte
Thanks for having me.
