It's like a crisis chat where you can talk to someone instead of doing it on the phone. I gave up on it though. After they bumped me to 15 it never changed. I ended up going to 7cups of tea. Although the people there aren't trained counselors it still helped to have someone to just listen. I was really down last night and I needed to talk to someone and didn't want to burden my husband. I'm not impressed with lifeline at all, but highly recommend the 7 cups of tea for anyone having a rough night.