9 Observations About the Practice and Process of Online Therapy

Abstract

The underlying therapeutic process of online counselling via email displays novel qualities in terms of its dimensionality, the role played by empathy and momentum, the significance of memory and sensory modalities, and the influence exerted by self selection bias. Asynchronous online counselling also introduces novelties to the basic mechanics of daily work, including a need for awareness of the practice peak to mean ratio, some subtleties regarding client consent for research, challenges for handling client backlogs, and a problem of representing counsellor experience honestly. Despite all this novelty, however, it seems that no fundamentally new ethical territory has been created by the advent of online counselling; there is, rather, merely new technological territory which challenges us to grasp its ramifications for existing normative principles.

Keywords: Email, ethics, online counselling, online therapy, therapeutic process

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