Online Counselling - Is it safe?

Article by Deborah Ward, Psychotherapist
January 2006

Everybody has heard the gruesome news of internet horrors. Stories of identity fraud, hacking, scams, suspicious characters luring vulnerable people with lies and promises abound. So why would anyone choose the internet for counselling? Counselling and therapy often means sharing your deepest, most vulnerable secrets to another person. And yet, many people are turning to the internet to do so.

The New Year is meant to be the time that brings hope. However, for many, it is just the opposite. Work is as stressful as ever. Relationships haven't improved. The new approach to diet gently gave way. Plans to really get on top of things this year dissolved slipped into the fading past. Despite all those well-intentioned resolutions, Life took over. The advent of the internet, email and mobile connectivity has contributed to quickening life and expectations. Stress is reaching epidemic proportions. "Up to 5 million people in the UK feel "very" or "extremely" stressed by their work" (http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/), Many people do not know where to turn. Even worse, for those who do, they haven't the spare time to visit a counsellor or therapist on a regular basis.

There is a Chinese saying 'Every front has a back'. This means that for every plus there is a minus; that the universe operates on a sort of swings and roundabouts system. And so, the many advantages of an e-culture have also brought higher demands and stress to many people. By using the same philosophy, maybe the solution can be found within the problem; that for every back there is a front. If technology contributed to the problem, maybe it can also help solve it.

Online and telephone counselling is one such solution that is gaining in popularity. It eliminates the travelling time, provides greater flexibility and fits in with the client's schedule. But it has raised some eyebrows within the profession. Some psychotherapists criticise that it is too remote or disconnected. For some therapies, such as body analytical techniques, that is indeed true. This type of therapist uses observations of how people hold and use their bodies to protect themselves. Other therapists who base their work in relational techniques depend upon what is 'in the room, here and now' in the space between the two people. For this type of work, it is essential that the client visits the therapist in person.

But there are other types of therapy and counselling too. At the very heart of psychoanalysis, lies the concept of transference. Transference is when the client unknowingly casts the therapist into the role of someone else, such as their mother or father and 'projects' emotions onto the therapist as if they were that person. This provides a wealth of information about how the person makes automatic assumptions about the world and other people. For this technique to be successful, the therapist seeks to keep their own personality as neutral as possible, known as the 'blank screen' effect. This is one reason why psychoanalysts, like Freud, sit behind the patient, out of view.

Online and telephone therapy are excellent for providing this 'blank screen' setting. By having to struggle and guess how the therapist is responding to what they are saying or writing helps to bring out their assumptions. It helps make the unconscious, conscious. That is a primary aim of therapy. Another benefit is that some people find it easier to talk about embarrassing or difficult feelings on the telephone or over the internet. They feel they can be more open.

This is why people can develop such quick and seemingly deep relationships in chat rooms. There is an enormous amount of transference going on. People are utilising their imagination to fill in major blanks about the others they are chatting to. They can open up very quickly and deeply. It is almost like getting to know people from the inside, out. Or, so it seems. The problem lies when any of the participants are manipulating the scene. This is often the case in chat rooms because people are there to have a chance at expressing a hidden or 'wannabe' aspect of their personality as their real-life, functional character. And of course, there is the darker practice of luring people into dangerous encounters, extracting money and the like based on false or misleading information.

There is a similar danger when engaging with online therapy. It is vital that the therapist clearly states their training and qualifications and whether they are supervised, licensed and insured. If at all in doubt, the potential client should check that the training organisation or professional body is reputable and that the therapist or counsellor is recommended by them. But this is equally true of personal visit therapy, where abuse is sadly, but potentially, just as possible.

Online therapy can provide support to people who very much would like it, but are not able to avail themselves to it for a variety of reasons. If the therapist is reputable, fluent with using the telephone or internet and the client is able to express their self clearly in writing or on the telephone, it can work well. Society is in the midst of an e-culture. Well-practised online counselling is but one of the many benefits.

© 2006. The above content is legally registered copyright of Deborah Ward. If anyone would like to republish the above article, please email me your request, where it will reside and your assurance of a link back to this website, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.