Online therapy or counselling can provide a safe and supportive environment in which you can focus on your own life and on what matters to you, working at your own pace and — in the case of email-based online counselling — with more time to reflect.
Do you have a question for a licensed mental health professional, and you don’t have time to wait? Now you can put your questions to a counselor, therapist or psychologist and receive a personal and confidential reply online right now.
In addition to the Advantages of Counselling by Email and the Disadvantages of Counselling by Email, a few specific questions are worth pondering before deciding to try out online therapy or counselling services. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers to any of these questions, but reflecting on them may influence how appropriate you feel online therapy or counselling by email would be for you. In a few cases (such as suicidal or homicidal feelings), I don’t believe it’s appropriate to initiate counselling by email; in all such cases, I will clearly indicate this below.
Remote counselling via email (“Online Therapy and Online Counselling”) carries many disadvantages as well as advantages in comparison to traditional, face-to-face counselling.
Having been spun off a few years ago, our counselling service now operates at MyTherapist.com. It was originally founded by Dr Greg Mulhauser, who was reportedly the first online practitioner in history to complete over 1 million words of fully documented, fully peer-supervised online individual therapy.
You’ve probably been told to check for a locked padlock icon in the corner of your browser window — and an ‘https:’ in your address bar — to be sure a web page is secure, right? Well, unfortunately, the received wisdom about providing your personal details on a ‘secure web form’ is just plain wrong…
