In Texting Era, Crisis Hotlines Put Help at Youths’ Fingertips - New York Times

By LESLIE KAUFMANFEB. 4, 2014

The conversation began abruptly, with the anonymous teenager getting straight to the point: She had just told her family that she was really a boy trapped in a female body. “Now my family hates me,” she told a crisis counselor.

The counselor was empathetic. She asked for more detail about the family, offered encouragement and provided the name of a local support group.

It was in many ways a typical exchange on a crisis hotline, except it took place entirely by texting.

While counseling by phone remains far more prevalent, texting has become such a fundamental way to communicate, particularly among people under 20, that crisis groups have begun to adopt it as an alternative way of providing emergency services and counseling.

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