The new normal: Online therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic

For many people, the idea of online therapy is no big thing.  They grew up online, formed and maintained meaningful relationships online, found their partners online.  That they would also get therapy online is a no-brainer.

But this is definitely not the case for everyone.

When most of us think about therapy, we envision a face-to-face encounter in a therapist’s office – and for good reason.  

There is much to be gained from meeting with a therapist live:

• Establishing a foundational relationship with the therapist, often referred to as a therapeutic alliance, can be easier in-person. Therapists can pick up on non-verbal features like tone of voice, body language, and pauses in conversation (that is, not the screen freezing up on you, but actual pauses that may signal something).  Clients can get a clear sense of the therapist’s conversational and therapeutic style.
• There can be something therapeutic simply in the act of sharing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in someone else’s office. It calls to mind a suggestion heard in so many yoga classes:  leave on the mat that which doesn’t serve you.  Similarly, clients can, at least to a certain extent, leave in their therapist’s office burdensome thoughts and feelings.
• Confidentiality is vital to effective therapy. Clients can more easily feel assured of this when speaking one-on-one, in a private office, whirring noise machine at work just outside the door.

So, what to do now that COVID-19 requires that we press pause on in-person therapy, making online therapy the new normal?

First, it’s important to know that online therapy, while new for many of us, is not actually new.  People have been using online therapy for nearly 40 years, starting with online self-help chat rooms in the early ’80s.  It was more than 20 years ago that the International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO) was established to promote the understanding, use, and development of online mental health services. And, over the past decade, a number of studies have been published that look at the effectiveness of online therapy.  And those studies have consistently shown that online therapy can be effective, particularly for clients struggling with anxiety or depression.

All of that is important, but maybe you just don’t think online therapy is for you.  Maybe getting vulnerable through a telephone screen just doesn’t sit right with you.  Or maybe you think online therapy could work out alright, but you figure you’ll just wait until this situation clears up so you can seek out traditional, in-person therapy.  If you have the sense that you could benefit from some help now, I would urge you not to wait.  We are all hopeful that the current public health crisis will end soon, but we just don’t know when we can go back to some version of business-as-usual.  So, here are three things you can do to help wrap your head around the new normal of online therapy.

1. Try it on for size. Many therapists use an initial consultation call, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes. See if the therapist you’re interested in will do the initial consultation call via Zoom or whatever platform they use to conduct sessions.  This will give you a little taste of what the interaction will be like.  You may find it’s better than you imagined it would be.
2. Location, location, location! Although one of the advantages of online therapy is that you can sometimes work with someone who seems perfect for you, but who is located in another city or state, you may want to consider someone closer to home.  This way, once the COVID-19 crisis ends – and it will end, eventually – you can shift from online therapy to in-person therapy.
3. Get informed. Not sure online therapy can really work?  Read for yourself what kind of results online therapy has been able to achieve for such conditions as depression, anxiety, panic disorder, and the management of chronic health conditions.