Psychotherapy is taking on a new form that involves online communication between the physician and patient. Emailing, instant messaging, and webcams are used between individuals in order to conduct sessions. New and innovative ways of counseling always interest me because I plan and hope to go to graduate school after I complete my degree at VCSU. I would like to pursue school counseling, preferably in a high school. Being able to communicate with faculty, staff, and students would be very important in certain situations. New research shows that counseling online in has helped people recover from depression. This short video also talks about the link between stress and depression. We could be seeing patients that have developed depression from high levels of stress as well. Online therapy also helps those individuals that have different locations far away from each other. With everyone’s busy schedules as well as their family’s schedules, therapy becomes just one more thing to fit into a person’s timeline. The study revealed some positive results. The study, led by Dr. David Kessler, found that 38 percent of the participants recovered from the depression after four months.
Since patients and therapists would be able to communicate in a huge number of ways, online psychotherapy will probably become pretty popular. Along with the positive aspects come the negative effects too. There are many cues that therapists would miss out on. Facial expressions, voice inflections, and the face-to-face interactions wouldn’t exist in this type of environment. Both the therapist and the patient would miss out on each other’s emotions and feelings that are seen during conversations and sessions.
The next question that needs to be answered is: what will happen in the future with online therapy sessions and our communication in medical fields?
As a possible future counselor, I would be open to the idea of online therapy, especially if new and advanced technologies were able to help make it more like face-to-face sessions. The article asks whether online therapy will work as good as or better than face-to-face interactions. I’m sure it will depend on a person’s individual situation. Certain conditions could probably be treated successfully with this process, but others would need different types of treatment. I think it will be very interesting to see these new innovations appear in the future, and I hope to be able to utilize it in my career as well.
I can see a lot of pros and cons to using technology for psychotherapy. I can see where it has it's benefits, but like you said, when it comes to psychotherapy, it is very difficult for therapists to read the emotions, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. of the individual they are working with. I understand and can definitely see the benefits of it as well, as it allows for easier scheduling and saves time. When I weigh the pros and cons though, I do not like the idea. So much of our world is done through technology, and more and more people are becoming more disconnected with their physical world. This just gives individuals another excuse to to go out and see people, and that is not a good thing, especially when these individuals already have psychological problems.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading your article Eden, I was immediately against internet therapy. I didn't think that it could compare to face to face communication, which is much more meaningful than anything cyberspace has to offer.
ReplyDeleteAs I kept reading, though, I realized there may be something to it. I still think that face to face therapy is better and can help the person heal more completely, but I've heard of too many situations where the person in need of therapy is too lazy/embarrassed to seek out help. I'd rather have people getting help from the internet than harboring all their pain inside of them.
In our world, it seems like things are getting progressively less personal. Online classes are an example of this. Even though there is some interaction, I feel closer to classmates from face-to-face classes. I see how online therapy could be beneficial in certain situations, but overall I think it may be harmful. People who don't make the effort to see a therpaist in person will probably not get as much out of a session as those who do.
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