Online Counselling and Therapy... Works Better?!

Having recently been practicing counselling and psychotherapy in Australia, I've noticed that here in New Zealand we are lagging behind in awareness and use of online therapy. I have no evidence to back this up, but I presume that Australians are taking to online therapy because of the difficulties accessing a therapist due to the immense distances and spread out population, once you get outside of the major cities. 

Therapists use various video platforms to work with clients, including popular ones such as skype. My experience has been that after a self conscious first five minutes, and bar the occasional irritating lag or need to repeat a sentence, both therapists and clients quickly forget that they are not in the same room together, and that online therapy really functions very similarly to meeting in person. 

But, you may ask (I certainly did)... does it work as well as meeting in person? Actually, what research I've seen actually says that it works better. This article summarises the findings briefly. Intuitively, I'm not so sure about this, and want to inject a note of caution. The type of therapy studied, cognitive behaviour therapy, is fairly brief therapy that tackles the symptoms but not the causes of the issues. I'm not so sure that deeper therapeutic work would translate so well to working online. 

Still, I think that online therapy is a great addition for people who live in remote areas, those who want to access a specialist therapist who may practice far away, or those who are impeded by shyness or disability from doing therapy in person. At Lucid Psychotherapy we do offer online counselling, so contact us if you're interested.