RE: What is Online Psychotherapy And How to Benefit From it ?
Hi my fellow,
I am not sure whether I really should give an answer because my mood is not to the best this morning. But I will try to stay as clear-headed as possible.
I tried online-consulting where I was the supporting part - that is not psychotherapy - and from the little experience I've got I would say that it's for me not the preferred form of communication. I had a skype session with screen activated on both sides and one pure text-chat on discord. I found the setup difficult. That comes probably from the fact that I use to consult in real life face to face.
People who actually are in deep despair and need breathing and feeling people around them don't do themselves a favor in NOT meeting physically.
I had a time in my life where I had a serious depression. Back then online communication made it worse. What I longed for was human contact. My pain was partly to suffer from loneliness ... or better: a strong feeling of being lost in this world.
Sometimes words and text are not enough and video chat misses also to the experience of real contact. Though that might only be my interpretation and people in need actually gained something from online therapy ...
so I only speak for myself.
There is also the danger of feeding a tendency which already I can see in the world. That is avoiding human contact.
What I find the most valid point of yours is when you don't use video you never know who is on the other side. We are far from being capable of receiving evaluable information only by text or audio. If we were all "Betazoids" like the character "Counsellor Troy" in Enterprise it would be different.
Other than that I think it is for the health insurances a "nice to offer". In my social work, I am seeing many clients who actually need therapy. To find a place is difficult because obviously mental illnesses increase and therapists are having full schedules. So coming up with online offers seems reasonable. But from my experience and professional view I would not go for it.
Hi, Erika
To be honest I am skeptical about online psychotherapy as well. If I have the choice, I would never choose it over traditional psychotherapy. In this article I tried to represent it as an alternative. As I dug for studies I was quite surprised that most of them support the hypothesis that it's effective.
Thank you for your sincere thoughts on this topic. Always appreciated :)