Law Assignment Writing Help Analysis Review: Integrated technology, Online Therapy and Psychotherapy
Question??
Write about Phone and Online Counseling??
Solution the question frame is::
INTRODUCTION
The current document basically reviews the definitions, ethical considerations and potential strengths and weaknesses of online and telephonic counselling therapy.
Integrating technology with psychotherapy has been a topic of debate among the mental health professional over last 15 years. We can define online therapy as any type of professional therapeutic interaction between a qualified mental health professional and his client with the use of internet. Another important medium of giving therapeutic sessions is through telephone. Online therapy is relatively a more recent development as compared to what use to happen earlier wherein the therapists used to deliver their treatment via letters and telephone. Presently maximum of online therapy takes place via e-mail (Stofle, 2001). Email is ‘asynchronous’ which implies that the communication is not real time instead it provides the liberty to the participants to respond whenever they get the time to do so. Some of the therapists have full service website dedicated for the purpose wherein they provide secure message and credit card processing options. Online psychotherapists have different types of pricing arrangements which includes flat fees for a standardised message length, charging according to the time utilised in replying or even package offers where the offer set number of e-mails. At present online therapy of real time basis is not very common which takes place using free, chat based interfaces (e.g. AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, etc.). With the advancement in technology more and more therapists are offering videoconferencing sessions using a wide range of available software and programs. Online therapy is available in a wide range of formats. It is provided as a stand-alone service, but also is used as an adjunct to traditional face to face clinical work (Yager, 2001)
Finally we can that the mental health professionals have identified the importance of internet and are using it to provide a variety of services, including online testing (Barak & English, 2002), Career counselling (Boer, 2001), and information resource websites for consumers (Grohol, 1999).
THE TELEPHONE COUNSELLING
In spite of the fact that internet based technology are currently being used at a fast pace for providing services other than the traditional face to face setting, the use of distance technology in practice has been a part of literature for more than 30 more. The telephonic services have a very strong historical record in serving clients and can be called a precursor to more sophisticated distance technologies. The discussion about how useful telephonic services are for counselling has a direct bearing on the issues related to online-counselling services. In today’s world telephone, a distance-communication technology has become a standard tool for many practitioners for various tasks such as scheduling, consultation, payment, crisis management, and psychotherapy. In a survey done recently around 600 doctors(psychologists) who were even the member of APA(American Psychological Association), 98% were found providing services by telephone (VandenBos&Willians, 2000).
Benefits: The benefits of online counselling and telephonic counselling are more or less the same so now I would like to list few of the benefits both of them provide, due to which they are gaining popularity day by day:
1) Convenience and Increased Access
It is the most important benefit of online therapy as it provides a high degree of convenience and accessibility for both the clients and therapists. It has great potential to serve all those people who have limited mobility, time limitations, and restricted access to mental health services. Even people who are living in remote areas and do not have an access to an appropriate therapist, people who are working, travelling and relocating in countries where they are not able to consult therapists due to language issues. It is very useful for people with physical disabilities as it is cumbersome for such people to visit the therapist personally all the time( Mitchell& Murphy, 1998).
2) Zone of Reflection
It provides the opportunity to both the parties in communication to a highly enhanced level of self reflection, as both the parties exchange e-mails as a part of the normal process of therapy so while they are exchanging dialogues they can pay close attention to their own process, the way the medication is taking place. It also provides a enhanced sense of emotional containment as the client is able to set the pace, tone and parameters of self disclosure (Suler, 2000).
3) Writing is Therapeutic
It has been proved by many people that writing about your own problems has a very therapeutic effect on many clients( Murphy& Mitchell, 1998). Writing about your emotional experiences is very useful as in person a client may not disclose so much but while writing the level of disclosure is high.
4) Hypertextuality and Multimedia
Online therapy provides the opportunity to the therapist to provide his clients to relevant supplementary material quickly and easily. Links of informative websites, video recordings, documents and assessment tools which are easily available online can be used by the therapist providing their services online whereas in case of the traditional therapy which takes place in the office of the therapist where he has a limited access to the resources as he can only use the ones available on his bookshelf. Online therapy provides access to limitless resources (Grohol, 2000)
5) Demonstration of Empathy
It is another very important benefit of online or phone therapy as the people who feel lonely can share their problems with others and it helps them find new ways to solve their problems and make them feel content socially as they have somebody to talk to.
6) High degree of disclosure
When a client is talking to a therapist online or on telephone he does not have the fear of the disclosure of his identity so he is much more relaxed and shares his problems more freely thereby disclosing everything honesty which helps the therapist to solve his problem more efficiently as sometimes in case f the face to face therapy the client get nervous and does not provide complete information about the problem he is facing which in turn hampers the efficiency of the therapist and he faces greater difficulty to deal with the client.
Limitations: The following are some of the challenges which the online and telephonic counselling faces.
1) Missing Nonverbal communication
One of the most important drawback of online counselling is the lack of nonverbal communication as while exchanging e-mails or talking on telephone the therapist does not have access to the nonverbal behaviours of the patient unless outrightedly reported by the patient which is a very important part of the counselling process. This limitation rules out highly experiential therapeutic approaches that necessitate personal presence (Alleman, 2002).
2) Misreading or faulty transmission
The online therapy has a huge potential for misunderstanding as spontaneous clarifications are not available. In case of telephonic conversation also somethings the line is not very clear and the voice of the other person is not heard clearly thereby leaving a doubt in the mind of both the persons as to what they were trying to communicate to each other. Some therapists have lack of proper training of text-based communication, so they might miss some of the information about the client available between the lines so the real issue is ignored. There is a high degree of error in online assessment makes traditional diagnosis virtually impossible and limits the clinician to making provisional hypotheses ( Childress, 1998).
3) Time Delay
One more important technical challenge is that online therapy conducted via e-mail has a built-in time delay altering the nature of the counselling process. Clients may sometimes left wondering about the delay in the therapist’s response, sometimes though the time delay can be considered good as it provides time to think but it may also create anxiety.
4) Skill Deficiency
In order to avail the benefits of online counselling both the therapist and the client should be reasonably good writers and typists, and should be computer literate as well to manage the medium. The effectiveness of the therapy would depreciate in case they are not comfortable in expressing themselves in writing.
5) Crisis Intervention
Therapists face a great amount of difficulty in case of crisis where the client becomes suicidal, managing the client becomes very difficult as you cannot control the situation directly as both the client and the therapist are sitting at different location which can be even two different countries
6) Cultural Clashes
Due the technology some therapists are likely to adopt a “carte blanche” approach to the indiscriminate crossing of culture, time zones, and various social systems. If it seems that a therapeutic relationship is prone to conflict of interest, misunderstanding, or compromises the needs of the client then even the ease of accessibility becomes a secondary consideration.
7) Identity
Verification of the identity of the client is a very difficult matter in case of online therapy. To avoid fraudulent activities to take place the therapist usually makes sure that the emergency contact information is made available before the communication between the therapist and client begins. Even most of the website requires a password in order to enter the interactive communication system.
8) Security
Another important matter of concern is taking the guarantee of keeping the records of the client and the communication with the client confidential. If special attention and precaution is not taken then there are a huge number of security issues which may arise in the process of online counselling (Zack, 2004).
Legal and Ethical Issues
There are many legal and ethical concerns associated with the delivery of therapy services via internet. Providing the therapy services across the jurisdictional boundaries give rise to licensing issues and it also demands clarity of the legal responsibility in case of crisis, and appropriateness of client anonymity is are the part of some of the other concerns.
How appropriate is the online therapy
One way to mitigate the limitations faced by the online therapy is to do a screening of the clients and provide the services to only those who will benefit from such services. But the base of potential clients for the online therapy is ever increasing so to determine who can and cannot be treated effectively is very difficult. Stofle (2001) believes that online counselling is suitable for those clients who are in outpatient settings, and not appropriate for clients who are being hospitalized or who have severe psychiatric disorders. Problems and issues which can be dealt by online therapy should be majorly personal growth and fulfilment, adult children alcoholics, anxiety disorders, including social phobias and guilt issues. Clients who have suicidal intentions, personality disorder or are suffering from unmonitored medical issues are not appropriate for online therapy.
As not every client is suitable for online therapy similarly every therapist is not appropriate for providing online therapy services. The minimal should be that every online therapist should be comfortable with computers and communicating via text. The best online therapist should be a strong visualize and should be creative and flexible in his thinking, he should even have undergone the specialized training required for online therapy either through self study or by attending formal workshops and seminars organised for the purpose( Anthony& Goss, 2003; Hsiung, 2003).
Conclusion
Though there are many limitation that exist while providing online therapy it stiil has a wide variety of advantages so this section cannot be ignored completely and is a very good option for future with the increase in the use of computers to perform all the task and with the growing economy computer literacy has become very common and inevitable for personal growth and well being and with such educated client base using high tech gadget to provide services would not be a problem in the coming future.Inspite of the fact that the public in general is still expressing certain reservation on the utilization of online services over and above the attitudes expressed towards psychotherapy in general, the online therapy services are gaining importance day by day.
Few researchers to date have considered cross-cultural issues and differences that surface in online therapy. Relevant cross-cultural factors need to be considered both in regard to differences between clients and therapists and in terms of rules, regulations, guidelines, and accessibility to technology that exist among users (or potential users) of online therapy in different countries.
Studies show that the process and outcome of online therapy when compared with the tradition method of therapy have given more positive findings, by suggesting only a few differences in the process and outcome of these different avenues for help. When we consider the possible benefits that the online therapy provides to reach the people who might not seek help otherwise, the imparting of such services is highly recommended.
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