Part II in the Online Counselling Series
You’ve heard me talk about online counselling. You know I help people who feel lost, who feel they have lost themselves, and who are stuck. You know I often work with people suffering from depression and anxiety and often the results of childhood trauma like sexual abuse, neglect, broken families, and other traumas.
People’s lives change with Online Counselling
But you might ask yourself, does online counselling even work? The easy answer is YES! Using counselling and art therapy techniques, my clients work through the patterns they are currently living, understand and learn to know themselves better, identify changes they want to make and then gradually make those changes.
Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it takes work
Sometimes just realising what they are doing, how they came to be doing things in that way, and seeing it all from a different perspective is enough to flip a switch and changes happen without much effort at all. But other times it takes time to painstakingly challenge old thinking, build a plan for a new way of being, and time checking in and coaching through the change process.
All of this is the same whether we are meeting in person or online. Online counselling makes no difference whatsoever about it. There are many, many books, academic articles and studies done that comment on the effectiveness of online counselling. Just search on google scholar for online therapy or online counselling effectiveness. Like all studies you will likely find arguments on both sides, but considering the rapid increase of online counselling in many countries of the world, it seems that effectiveness is not in question.
Is it appropriate for all problems?
Is online counselling for every kind of problem? There are such a wide range of problems that people might seek online counselling care for. Depression and anxiety are common ones. Trauma from your childhood. Grief and loss. Relationships both within an adult relationship and between family members. Difficulties with social interactions. Other mental health problems and diagnoses. Self esteem and self confidence. Eating disorders. Weight issues. Anger management. Conflict resolution. When considering if online counselling will be effective with each of these, it is the counsellors job to consider the appropriateness of online counselling.
The counsellor carefully considers safety needs
The counsellor will consider if your safety needs can be met when you are not meeting physically in the same location. Because you are meeting online, you may not both be located in the same city, or even the same country. It is my job to think through all the possibilities that you might not ever even consider, to be sure that you are safe, while in the session and also between our sessions. What if our conversation brings up some very upsetting or triggering topics and you need some serious mental health care in person, and in the moment? I may not be able to provide that from my distant location. It is my job to consider how we will manage that and if my distance from you will potentially cause more harm than good. In that case, online counselling might not be the best possible option.
The online counsellor will also consider the nonverbal communication that may be lost when we are communicating through video. I can’t see what your feet or lower body are doing while we speak – that I could see if we were together in person, and which may give me more information than just your face and your words. Your physical presentation might be particularly important in some situations, like in treating eating disorders, and I might not get the full picture if we are not together in the same room. There may be some other non verbal communication that is lost in the online interaction. It is my job as the online counsellor to assess the likelihood of these things being a barrier to our safe and effective work.
Online counselling might be a better option than no counselling at all
Even with these considerations, some people have few options in their location, and online counselling might be a better option than no counselling at all, even considering the potential safety issues.
Overall I feel confident to say that online counselling works for most people with most kinds of problems.
