We’ve entered a therapy-friendly age: Online mental health companies ran ads during the Super Bowl and the Olympics, while a meme poking fun at people who resist counseling just went viral. It can be easy to forget that this is a relatively recent development, and that for many, therapy — and its attendant admission that all is not well — still carries a heavy stigma. This can be particularly true for older Americans, farmers, and rural residents (three groups with a lot of overlap). In farming communities, “mental illness is not considered an illness. In many cases, it’s considered a character flaw,” said New York dairy farmer Jeff Winton, founder of the mental health nonprofit Rural Minds. “It’s considered a personality weakness.”

Use of telemental health services expanded quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and all signs indicate this trend is here to stay. More than half of patients (57 percent) say they prefer using telehealth for regular mental health visits, according to a recent J.D. Power survey. A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation also found that more than one-third of outpatient care visits for mental health and substance use disorders are conducted via telehealth. Increased patient demand for mental telehealth services, as well as permanent policy changes allowing reimbursements for telemental and telebehavioral healthcare, mean providers are highly incentivized to implement the technologies and security measures needed to deliver optimal telemental care.