The Benefits of Virtual Counselling
By Carly Fleming, M.Ed. RP
Registered Psychotherapist
Back in the middle of March, just like many of you, I wasn’t prepared for the huge shift in my work life that was about to happen. As a Psychotherapist, working face-to-face with my clients had been a foundational piece of my work for my entire career. Then – on March 17th, that face-to-face contact was removed. Just like that, I thought I was going to have to re-invent the work that I do each day as a therapist. I was scared, anxious, angry and a little bit excited about how this might change my world and the experience of my clients. Many of my clients felt these same feelings too. We didn’t know what was going to happen but we needed to adapt fast.
Three months later, I am so pleased to let you know that the transition to providing virtual counselling has been a resounding success! The most important piece of this success is the reality that we have not had to re-invent therapy for a virtual world.
Sure, there are technical pieces that have to be put into place, but once that is done, the human-to-human connection which is at the heart of our work is just the same.
As many of us have found out over the course of this pandemic, we can connect with each other in profound ways through the beauty of technology.
Of course, there are many clients who are eager to return to in-person counselling and I’m eager to see them again. But what I’m hearing from many clients is that connecting virtually is their preference and they will continue with this even after the pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
If you are wondering if you should give online counselling a try – let me share with you a few pieces of feedback I’ve received from clients who I’ve been working with virtually for 3 months now.
There are the obvious pluses – you can wear your comfy pants, sit in your favourite chair, don’t have to drive anywhere, etc.
These benefits are significant if you consider the importance of therapy taking place in a comfortable, familiar and low-stress environment. But the benefits don’t end there.
My clients are telling me that they are finding it easier to be vulnerable – to connect to the emotions that feel raw and difficult. Connecting to vulnerability and raw emotion is so important to progress in therapy and hearing clients tell me that this feels easier, more natural online is an amazing (and somewhat unexpected) bi-product of our shift online.
People are also telling me that they have the ability to mindfully set the stage for therapy and mindfully reflect after therapy in a way that they couldn’t in-person.
Because people aren’t driving, sitting in traffic, running into the waiting room to check in on time, they are sitting quietly in front of their computers, taking some breaths, writing a few prompts before the session starts. This allows us to jump right into the work, to the heart of the therapeutic work in a way that feels gentle and natural.
And then after the session, clients tell me that they are sitting and reflecting on the session in a way they could not when they had to leave the therapy room, hop in their car and fight traffic to get back home.
The ability to reflect on what has just transpired in therapy is incredibly beneficial. More of each session can be integrated and reflected on between sessions and I notice that clients return to the next session feeling focused and having made really good progress on their own.
This has been a tough few months in our world. Each and every person has been affected in their own way. We are all grieving and processing the changes to our lives. And I am so pleased to let you know that connecting with a therapist virtually is a beautiful silver lining behind the clouds.