Counseling help via text

If you have a smartphone you probably text a whole lot more that you talk. For teens and millennials, texting has become the primary way to stay in touch.

People who do crisis intervention have caught on to the idea. They're replacing the traditional hotline with a more tech savvy version called the Crisis Text Line, which launched two years ago and is now nationwide. On average, 20,000 texts a day come through the 24/7 counseling hotline.

If you need help and need to talk without actually talking on the phone you can text 741-741 and a trained counselor will talk with you via text. The Crisis Text Line says you remain anonymous. In fact, they say AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile have entered an agreement with the texting hotline to not charge texters and also to remove the short code from their bills.

Dr. Alan Manevitz is a clinical psychiatrist who uses texting with his patients if they don't want to talk on the phone or meet in person. He says he supports what the Crisis Text Line is providing. He also says texting allows time to reflect on what you want to text instead of feeling pressure to immediately respond to someone when you're talking to them.