Silent Devotion

E-Counseling: A Waste of Money or Wise Choice?

E-therapy, cyber-counseling, virtual counseling and online therapy are all terms for internet counseling. E-mail exchanges are utilized in this therapeutic modality to help empower people’s lives. While telephone sessions may play a role in the process, the internet provides the primary infrastructure to support a client - therapist relationship which fosters growth and can dramatically increase the client’s quality of life.

Pros: People often open up faster during internet exchanges than in face to face counseling. Writing about their feeling and thoughts can have a freeing effect, encouraging faster insight that an office setting.

There is a natural time delay during e-mail exchanges, allowing space for reflection on all that has been written. Counter-intuitively, the time delay can speed up the therapeutic process by assisting clients in sorting out feelings, beliefs and thoughts.

E-counseling is convenient. People can set their own pace. They can write from the comfort of their own home, and can send messages at any time of the day or night. In addition, clients can write as often as they like, knowing that everything will be read, and that they will typically receive a reply within 24 hours.

Getting out of the house to a face-to-face counseling session can sometimes be daunting. Parents of infants and small children have day care to contend with, and other people may find that certain emotional and physical conditions make travel difficult. Even if there are no professional counselors in the area, an online counselor can be available to help right away.

Unlike traditional therapy, online counseling provides a useful record of the counseling sessions. The e-mail exchanges allow the client and therapist to look back on their work together and evaluate it.

Online counseling is less expensive than traditional alternatives. There is no need for gas or travel, and people only pay for the time it takes their therapist to read their communications and write replies.

Cons: E-counselors can’t see their client’s body movements (facial expressions, twitches, etc.) that would normally prove useful in understanding what a client feels. This can lead to misunderstandings, and can make online counseling more difficult than face-to-face counseling for the therapist.

E-therapy clients need to be able to write well enough to express their feelings and thoughts via e-mail.

There are some people who are not good candidates for online therapy. Anyone who is suicidal, who has severe emotional problems, who is currently in crisis or who is under 18 years of age should seek face to face help.

E-counselors are unable to give formal diagnoses to their clients.

E-therapy is a pioneering work, and is therefore experimental.

Technology certainly supports this flexible therapeutic modality, allowing cyber-counseling to be a creative tool to provide convenient, affordable, competent therapy. E-therapy should not to be avoided simply because it veers from the traditional mold any more than it should be embraced because of its novelty. The quality of a therapist’s training and experience, as well as the goodness of fit between counselor and client are ultimately more important than the setting in which the therapy takes place. Perhaps you will find virtual therapy worth exploring to see if it is right for you.