What is Teletherapy?
Teletherapy refers to counseling sessions that take place over the phone, through secure video, or through secure messaging. While this may not have been a familiar part of your life pre-Coronavirus, I’m betting it is now. Luckily, counseling is a format that is pretty easily adaptable to distance participation (even with Brainspotting!). Since it is so flexible, it can allow us to come up with creative ways of helping you with the issues you are working through that being limited to a 50 minute in person counseling session just cannot.
All video counseling sessions are conducted securely through doxy.me, a HIPAA compliant telemedicine site that uses encrypted point to point connections to ensure confidentiality.
Possible benefits of teletherapy:
- Increased scheduling flexibility
- Ease of attending appointments
- Ability to be in your own house where you may feel more safe and comfortable
- Less of a time commitment
- Helpful if you have limited mobility or are on maternity/paternity leave
- Increased possibilities for exposure activities or for working towards specific goals
Some people really want or need to physically leave their house and to have the extra time for themselves. For others, it just wouldn’t be possible to do that. Also, teletherapy can open us up to collaborating in even more ways: we can do exposure exercises over the phone together; or we can exchange secure messages in between in person or video sessions to work towards specific goals. It really just adds a lot of possibilities. Many people are often wonder if online therapy is as effective as in person therapy. Below are some articles that address this concern.
Feeling doubtful about how effective online therapy might be? Check out some of these articles:
Working Alliance in Online Therapy as Comparedto Face-to-Face Therapy: Preliminary Results
http://personal.psu.edu/jec44/pubs/Cook%20&%20Doyle%20(2002).pdf
Efficacy and effectiveness of online cognitive behavioral treatment: a decade of interapy research
