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» What about Online Therapy?
Drawbacks of Text Communication
Therapy has often been called the "talking cure," since the exchange of words between the client and therapist can appear to be the most obvious form of communication that is going on. In reality, therapy can offer a much richer experience than the simple exchange of words and advice.
How something is expressed and the feelings and insight that are experienced in the moment of person-to-person sharing and responsiveness to one another can be key to effective therapy. Important communication elements such as tone of voice, in-the-moment thoughts and feelings that arise in response to what the other has just said, even pauses that indicate reflection cannot be adequately represented in online text communication.
Some have found that many of the most meaningful and often pivotal points of therapy were the result of a spontaneous remark--something they said or that the therapist said--that occurred purely in the moment of connecting with one another. When a client and their therapist have to “type out” their exchanges and engage in the slow give and take of e-mail, there’s a tendency to “self-edit”—only presenting a biased perspective that cannot be balanced by in-person perceptions--and so the client-therapist rapport risks becoming stilted and sometimes even self-deceptive (consciously or unconsciously).
Online therapy is also greatly limited by such constraints as an individual’s skills in writing and self-expression (on the part of the client and/or the therapist), the need for each to communicate at similar levels of comprehension, each person’s capacity to adequately translate feelings into written words, and the tendency to invest the text with all kinds of extraneous meaning and intention.
One of the biggest complaints from therapists and clients who have tried online therapy is that text-based communication is extremely time-consuming: first reading the other person’s e-mail message, next formulating a response, and finally transferring those thoughts into coherent sentences. While it may be tempting to write concise replies, short, expedient answers can too often mean a minimum of information and, at best, superficial therapy.
Link: Find a Therapist
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