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.

Managing Stress Through Yoga

Yoga is an effective way to deal with yourself and a means of stress management. It is not just about feeling terrific and uniting your body with your mind and soul.

Today, most yoga practitioners and teachers believe that apart from providing relaxation and peace, yoga is about the seemingly limitless capability of a person to be in control and unite with him or her inner self. With these underlying principles, yoga can be an effective way of stress management if used properly.

Be definition, the word “yoga” came from a Sanskrit term which means “union or joining.” It is considered as almost an ambiguous term because it encompasses a wide range of purely physical disciplines to purely spiritual. When people talk of yoga, the term “asana” is always mentioned. Asana is known as one of the eight types of yoga wherein mental and spiritual well being than are prioritized compared to physical endurance. Today, the two words have become almost synonymous to modern-day yogis because they embody the same concept: relaxation though meditation.

If you’re planning to practice yoga as a form of stress management, it shouldn’t be as confusing as it seems because you don’t need to learn all the concepts and philosophies behind it. This ancient tradition that requires deep meditation has been proven as an effective way to relax, what you need to learn are the basic information you will need for you to apply the concept in your everyday life.

Starting out with yoga

There are many different reasons people use yoga. Probably because using yoga they can explore all the possibilites of health and relaxation. Using deep meditation, it can be used not just for spiritual discipline, but can be used to manage stress.

If you are going to be using yoga to control your stress, you will need to understand first what your main objectives are - what you want to achieve. This will help you find the right program.

You will need to set some goals before getting right into your yoga program. You can accomplish this by learning what the health benefits are from using yoga. Most of the people that already practice yoga say that the main benefit is relieving stress.

The physical aspect of yoga will increase your strength and flexibility, create balance and improve your breathing and posture. Spiritually, yoga is an exercise that will help calm your nerves and mind while increasing your skill of concentrating.

It is important to have a physical examination before starting yoga. Talk to your doctor about the plusses and minuses of yoga. You will need to know what your physical limits are that you won’t have and complications, since yoga involves physical endurance.

Aside from knowing your goals and updating your overall health status. You must also consider the qualification of your yoga instructor, your physical and emotional limitations. The best time suitable for you to practice yoga, the basic yoga poses before slowly advancing to the difficult positions, and proper equipment and clothing to be used before using yoga as a means of stress management.