Credibility Evaluation: “Is Online Therapy As Good As Talking Face-To-Face With A Clinician?”
On April 21, 2016, Jo Abbot writes “Is Online Therapy As Good As Talking Face-to-Face With A Clinician?” for The Conversation where she discusses the pros and cons of online therapy. She first gives an explanation on what digital mental health care is, then moves onto the main purpose of the article. Abbott discusses that mental health care is provided over the Internet — offering more choices and greater flexibility — so that people can remain anonymous. She also talks about the effectiveness as well as who is suitable to use these kinds of health services, which are not suitable for everyone depending on preferences and technology knowledge. Although there are benefits to online therapy, there are also some disadvantages. Abbott talks about how services that only rely on written communication — email or online chat — interfere with noticing body language and voice tones. The end of the article provides a list sources and descriptions of the resources that will help others learn about different programs.
While reading the article, it’s easy to notice that it’s a credible source based on the news source. The Conversation itself is a news source that others around the world rely on, mainly in Australia. Although it’s not a news source that we rely on for local news such as The New York Times, CNN, and other news source, it’s still a credible source. Aside from the news source being credible, Jo Abbott provides hyperlinks throughout her article that lead to academic journals as well as her own personal background — doctor psychology, and research fellow at Swinburne University of Technology — to build her credibility. Overall, this article gives trustworthy and reliable information about the benefits and downsides of online therapy.
The hyperlinks highlight a certain word, phrase, or important fact providing an explanation on how it is connected to mental health, which then build her credibility. For example, she’ll state that “only about one-third of people with mental health difficulties obtain help” (Abbott 2). As you can see, the statistic she provided is underlined in blue and if clicked on it will take you to The Department of Health website run by the Australian Government. Other hyperlinks throughout the article lead to academic sources such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which provides information based on science and health. Another source that we are lead to is HealthTimes, which first began in the Australian magazine — Nursing Careers — in 1995. What makes these sources credible is the fact that it contains information on health related issues in general, and everything on the site specifically focuses on health. Providing hyperlinks to her sources rather than citing where her information came from shows that this information is valid, especially since the websites are based off of the knowledge of experts whom specifically study these certain subjects.
Although Abbott uses sources to help build her credibility, she also has a personal background in the mental health field as a researcher. As you first look at the site, it provides information underneath Abbott’s name about her credentials. Her profile states that she is a health psychologist, research fellow and Deputy Director of National eTherapy Centre at Swinburne University of Technology. What this entails is that she is well educated on the subject of online therapy and knows great knowledge of her topic. She researches the development and evaluation of technology-delivered health interventions for psychological topics such as mental health. With her background, it builds her own credibility by actually having knowledge on the topic of online therapy and knowing the benefits and downsides of it.
All in all, Jo Abbott has proven that she is qualified to write this article for this source through hyperlinks leading to other reliable sources and personal background that shows she can be trusted due to the fact that research is her job. The article also shows that the author is very open-minded about the different views of online therapy. Using they way I have analyzed this article, I will further my research on adolescents and how they’re lives are with depression and how they seem to handle it by looking for credible resources that will deepen my understanding more.
Works Cited
Abbott, Jo. “Is Online Therapy as Good as Talking Face-to-face with a Clinician?” The Conversation. The Conversation, 21 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.
