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It was inevitable that with the emergence of more and more of our lives online that the field of therapy would see more and more benefit from doing therapy online, but even still, lots of questions remain for both practitioners and clients. In an article from Monday (thanks to John Saddington for pointing me to the article) the title says it all, Therapy online: Good as face to face? The article begins by talking about a study on the topic of depression:

Participants were randomly assigned to either receive online cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to usual physician care — which may include antidepressant medication — or to continue their usual care and be placed on a waiting list. The intervention consisted of up to 10 55-minute sessions, five of which were expected to be completed by the four-month follow-up.

Of the 113 people who did online therapy, 38 percent recovered from depression after four months, compared with 24 percent of people in the control group. The benefits were maintained at eight months, with 42 percent of the online therapy group and 26 percent of the control group having recovered.

The level of benefit shown in the study is about the same as could be expected from traditional therapy, although the researchers did not compare the two as part of the experiment, said Dr. Gregory Simon, a psychiatrist and researcher at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington, who wrote the editorial that accompanied the study.

Benefits of Online Therapy
This article and a slew of other articles out there talk about the many benefits of doing therapy online. Things such as:

1. Providing therapy to those with limited/no access to see a therapist.
2. Some studies show that therapy over the internet allows clients to put down their guard, be more open and vulnerable than in person.
3. Often the stigma of going into see a therapist is removed.
4. According to some studies, like the one above, the benefit of therapy online is similar to that in person.

These are just a few of the more common benefits.

What other benefits can you think of?

Limitations of Online Therapy

1. Some experts say that online therapy limits some of the visual cues in gesture, as well as “speech intonations.”
2. Some see a limitation in rapport building when not done in person. Continue Reading…