I am Tired of Talking to my Webcam: A Counselor’s Lament
I miss being with people
The Background
In December of 2018, I completed my Masters in Counseling with a specialization in clinical mental health (meaning that my degree placed a little more emphasis on connecting people to community resources). I also picked up a masters in a philosophy related field because I wanted to take additional coursework in understanding humanity from as much of an holistic perspective as possible — not just what psychologists and counselors had to say.
I decided to pursue this field as a profession after a brief survey into marine biology in undergrad. I left high school wanting to get paid to SCUBA dive because, at that time — and now —there was no better place on Earth to be than in its waters. I still largely feel this way but I realized that I could just maintain SCUBA diving as a hobby and do something else with my life other than be a biologist. If I am being totally honest, however, I abandoned the idea of being a biologist because I knew that I was not going to be top of my class and be the one on research vessels doing what I wanted to do in the first place. I am not dumb by any means — just realistic.
The Counseling
In the short few years that I have gotten to do counseling as a job, I have absolutely loved it.
I love people. I love being present with people in the midst of some of their hardest times. I love watching someone go from a place to despair to a place of hope. I love that I get to play a small part in this journey. It is a privilege, a gift, and an honor that someone would open up to me about things they have told few to no people prior to coming into my office, sitting down next to a “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.” pillow and weeping, yelling, healing, and rejoicing.
Make no mistake about this: the person seeking help is doing all of the work. It is their lives and their struggles that they themselves overcome by their own strength. In the most ethical and professional sense that I can say it: I love my clients for the work that they do in counseling. It is not easy, but it is worth it.
In my brief time as a counselor I have worked in individual counseling settings as well as in an inpatient psychiatric hospital and have seen people walk through the toughest times of their lives to build their strength(s) to be able to take on new challenges. Most recently I have started working at a counseling center affiliated with a graduate training program meaning that the counselors I help supervise/manage are all masters-level students just starting out with their clinical experience. This has been a real blessing for me in many ways which I will not bore you with here (long story short: I work 1 minute away from my amazing wife and my amazing new born daughter).
The COVID-19
Due to my place of employment being a training clinic that sees upwards of 160 clients a week, we did not have the option of closing down until “this whole thing” (as we Southerners call it) blew over. From the second week of the pandemic taking place in the USA we have been able to provide mental health services to the majority of our clients via Telehealth. And let me stress that a little more: we have been able to, meaning that this is a privilege that I am immensely thankful for because not everyone has been able to do this due to technological and other practical limitations.
Not only have we been able to continue providing services to our existing clients, but these counseling interns have also been persistent, patient, and all-around-amazing during this time by opening up their schedules to see more people than is typically expected of them in order to meet the demand for mental health services that COVID-19 has caused. Some have even taken the initiative to start online groups for front-line healthcare providers in the city. I am nothing short of thankful.
Telehealth counseling has saved and is saving lives so I am more than willing to continue counseling through this platform as long as we need it.
Depression, addiction, anxiety, stress, you-name-it, are only exacerbated by situations outside of our control: global pandemics and national unrest included. Being able to safely meet with people to process and support through this time has been one of the greatest privileges of my life and it will fundamentally shape the field of counseling for years to come as Mental health practitioners will remain on the front lines of this crises long after a vaccine is developed.
With all this being the case, I am still…
Tired of Talking to my Webcam
The balancing act of a counseling session is already a complicated thing. Maintaining focus in session, managing the “window-of-tolerance,” tracking someone’s affect and body language, monitoring the time clock, etc. A counseling conversation involves a lot more than a normal conversation.
Now let's do that in a small frame within a smaller frame on a computer or phone screen — that is sometimes moving about someone’s house as they pace the room while simultaneously cutting in and out due to poor connection — and it all becomes more complicated, challenging, and demanding on the part of the counselor (and I am sure the client as well; but I cannot speak as readily to that).
Compounding this complication is that in order to “maintain eye contact” with the person on the other end of the video call, I have to look into my webcam and not actually at them. Regardless of how well I level off my laptop by precariously placing it atop 8 books and where I place the window of the application, if I look at the person it looks like I am not looking at them at all. Because of this, at the end of a day— although I may have spoken to people all day — I have spent the whole day talking to my webcam while someone on the other end listens.
I miss being able to clearly see and connect with people as we walk through their difficulties together. I miss being able to rejoice in person with people as they acknowledge the progress they have made in processing trauma or in lifting out of a depressive season. I miss being able to weep and rejoice with those who are doing the same.
I miss being able to walk my clients in and out of my office in an effort to communicate “I am with you in this.” Pressing the bright red “end call” button cannot come close to matching this.
The Conclusion
I am thankful for all of my fellow counselors — those I know personally and those I do not — for adapting during these times in order to continue to provide quality mental health services during these times of global crises. I am also deeply thankful for people who are continuing to seek out help in addressing their own mental health, you are never alone — even if it is through a webcam, there is always someone who can help.
I am sure that I am not the only one feeling mixed emotions about my webcam so thank you for listening to my lament about technological woes. I am hopeful that this will begin to subside and that we can begin to see what the next step in our “new normal” will be.
