Online therapy is becoming a more and more popular alternative to traditional in-person therapy. But is it actually effective?
It’s easy to see why people are becoming increasingly likely to turn to online therapy. Most people, especially the younger generations, are used to doing everything online, whether it’s booking a holiday, shopping for a car, talking to friends, reading the news or looking for entertainment. Our entire lives are being lived online- and it’s no surprise that for many, online therapy is a natural alternative to traditional in-person therapy.
Pros and cons of online therapy
Online therapy (or e-therapy, online counselling, web therapy- whatever you want to call it!) can be delivered by a number of methods: email, text or Skype being quite common. And it’s easy to see why this is a popular option. Not only is it convenient for both the client and the therapist, but it also removes some of the stigmas that is still associated with in-person counselling, and for some clients, it is preferable or easier to talk anonymously or to write down how they’re feeling.
On the other hand, many experts feel that without important elements of communication such as body language, facial expressions, and tone, clients may not be receiving high-quality therapy. After all, people express roughly 60% of their communication through non-verbal behaviours. Also, research shows that clients are more likely to get a positive outcome from therapy if they build a trusting relationship with their therapist: is it possible to build this level of trust with someone you’re not seeing in person?
The short answer is probably not. But- and here’s the important part- this may not actually matter, depending on the client’s initial complaint and their desired outcomes.
Read more about the pros and cons of online counselling here
How to measure outcomes of therapy
First of all, it’s important to stress that researching the efficacy of any type of therapy is complicated. Researches rely on tools such as mental health self-assessments, completed by the client to score them on factors such as unhappiness, lack of productivity and suffering. However, these tools really only measure tangible symptoms. What is far more difficult to assess is the efficacy of therapy on the underlying subconscious issues at hand. For somebody with an illness such as crippling depression, the goal is naturally to see a symptom reduction and for them to live a more functional life. In this scenario, it is relatively easy to measure outcomes. However, for a person who enters into therapy to become a whole, actualised version of themselves and reach their potential as a human being, it can be more complicated. How do you measure that outcome? This is a dilemma for researchers.
So is online therapy effective?
However, let us focus on what we do know: for clients seeking therapy to reduce their symptoms of conditions such as anxiety and depression, research has found that it is entirely possible to see positive outcomes via online therapy. One particular study looked at text therapy vs traditional therapy and found that the participants who received therapy via text or SMS had a lower score in terms of the level of trust in their therapist compared with those who attended in-person therapy. However- crucially- there was no difference in outcome between the two groups amongst those looking to reduce their symptoms of anxiety and depression. Additionally, video sessions, such as Skype, can strengthen the bond between the therapist and client (although the study found that this wasn’t actually necessary for successful outcomes).
So it’s good news for groups of people who are looking to alleviate the symptoms associated with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, as the results so far indicate that assessing non-verbal communication such as tone and body language is less important to treat these conditions. Written communication on its own is enough to successfully treat depression and anxiety. However, for other mental conditions, there has not been sufficient research to determine the efficacy of online therapy. There is no doubt that further research into this area will be conducted, and online therapy will have more opportunities to prove its worth.
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