Healing at Home HOW VIRTUAL THERAPY IS CHANGING MENTAL HEALTH CARE by Fiama Mastrangelo
Virtual therapy, or teletherapy, is changing the way that mental health practitioners deliver services to their patients. After many face-to-face services were abruptly forced to shut down due to COVID-19, mental health providers continued to care for patients by making the switch to teletherapy, which is a form of care that is conducted by video chat or phone call. At a time of global crisis, ensuring the accessibility of mental health resources remains critical for both practitioners and patients. Pensacola based Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMCH) and owner of Laynie Gibson, LMHC made the switch to teletherapy during the height of the pandemic. “From the clinician side of things, I think we were all, myself included, a little freaked out by the idea of moving to teletherapy at the beginning of 2020,” she said. “So much of what we do relies not only on what people are saying but how they’re saying it as well,” she explained.
For Gibson, body language can be an important diagnostic tool in face-toface therapy and she said it took some adjusting to work without that tool in teletherapy sessions. “How people are moving, or sitting or holding themselves throughout a session is a major element for both practitioners and patients within the therapeutic process,” Gibson said. “I’ve adapted to the little nuances of what it’s like waiting for someone to have an emotional response in a video space, including waiting out things like glitches and poor connections.”
Since teletherapy can be accessed from a patient’s residence, some people may prefer the convenience and comfort of processing their mental health concerns at home. “I actually prefer online therapy because it’s a lot more convenient,” said Claire, a local teletherapy patient. For Claire, the flexibility of teletherapy is especially helpful because of how her depression affects her own executive function. “When I’m depressed, I can just get on my laptop without having to get up, get ready and drive somewhere,” Claire explained. “I was aware of online therapy before COVID, but I never actually tried it until it was a necessity.” Like many others who were used to the in-person format, the switch
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