What is online therapy?
The nuances of providing online therapy and what it all means
Online therapy, also known as e-therapy, e-counselling, teletherapy or cyber-counselling, is a relatively new approach to providing mental health care. Online therapy happens via email, video or audio chats, or text messaging. These interactions can take place in online platforms specifically designed for therapy provision (e.g., SnapClarity) or through more general platforms (e.g., personal email, Skype) [there are pros and cons of various platforms, but I can get to that in a later article].
Common forms of Online Therapy
The most common forms of online therapy occur via text or video/audio chats. Each involve a slightly different approach to communicating with clients.
Text interactions are often more “on-the-fly”. That is, there is no scheduled time in which clients or therapists interact. Instead, clients write to therapists when they need to and therapists write back with a response in a reasonable amount of time (usually within 24–48 hours). Although this type of interaction sounds more casual than a traditional face-to-face therapy session, this is not necessarily the case.
Real mental health treatment can be conducted in a text-based format, but this involves client-therapist agreement on a “problem”, psycho-education about the treatment, and focusing on and following a treatment plan. Because this is more difficult to achieve over text (that is a lot of typing!), some therapists may prefer to use text based counselling as a supplement to longer and more formal video/audio sessions. In this scenario text based counselling can be used to bolster effects and provide support between video/audio sessions.
Not all Online Counselling is “Treatment”
Mental health treatment involves engaging in psychotherapy, which helps to modify thoughts and behaviours through use of evidence-based approaches.
To conduct psychotherapy, therapists require significant and demonstrated skills and training. Counselling, on the other hand, is more supportive and brief in nature, and can involve problem solving and advice-giving. For this reason, is important to figure out what a client needs and what the therapist can actually provide before agreeing to engaging in online therapy.
Finding the Right Match
Not all online therapy involves longer-term therapy with the same therapist. Some platforms are designed for persons dealing with immediate crisis and are looking for someone available 24 hours a day. In order to “staff” such a platform, clients would likely be linked with a different counsellor each time. In contrast, other platforms (like SnapClarity) are for longer-term psychotherapy (i.e., more than 1–2 interactions) and clients connect with the same therapist each time.
When attempting to find a therapist who provides online therapy, clients can quickly become overwhelmed. There are a lot of therapists who advertise that they provide online therapy and it can be difficult to choose the one that might be the best fit.
Platforms that are specifically designed for the delivery of online therapy vary in the amount of assistance they provide to clients when choosing the right therapist. Some platforms link clients to a therapist without considering client preferences. Other platforms ask clients to self-identify their own concerns, then provide them with a list of potentially helpful therapists, and then ask the client to reach out to their therapist of choice for an appointment. And finally, some platforms take care of this navigation completely; for example, SnapClarity matches clients with a registered psychotherapist who specializes in the client’s areas of concern.
Paying for Online Therapy
With respect to how clients pay for online therapy. Often text-based counselling is “unlimited” and may be charged weekly or monthly.
It is important to remember, although these platforms are unlimited for the client, the contributions from the therapist are more limited. This is because it can take time for therapists to read, process, and write a message that is therapeutic in nature. Because this can take time, therapists attempt to set aside some time every 24–48 hours to form a thoughtful response. In contrast, formally scheduled audio or video appointments are often charged using an hourly rate. Hourly rates can vary depending on the platform and the credentials of the therapist.
There is emerging evidence that online therapy can be effective. Give online therapy a try via SnapClarity, use code FIRST40 to receive 40% off your first monthly subscription (valid until August, 2018). Subscribe to our publication to stay in the loop of the nuances and pros and cons of online therapy.
