Many people silently struggle with their psyche at least once in their life. Though mental health is as important as physical health, unfortunately, the subject is still a big taboo. So people are not much vocal about it. There are many reasons for mental problems, and luckily most of them can be treated very well with therapy. You may have never learned how to deal with problems properly or you may have simply inherited a tendency to depression, anxiety, and similar mental health issues.
Unfortunately, too many people wait until they are psychologically completely down to get help. It is much easier to avoid problems than to solve them afterward. That’s why we should talk to a professional once every six months about how we are – regardless of the crisis.
Even if the actual therapy can be emotionally exhausting, the search for a therapy place is certainly one of the more annoying tasks. Mental problems or rather the diagnosis of these are on the rise, which is why there are far too few psychotherapists. Your family doctor may have a list of addresses, but you can also find many online therapists. If you don’t have a recommendation from friends or acquaintances, you can look for reviews online.
Who Should Look for Online Therapy?
- People who travel a lot and therefore cannot keep regular appointments at a fixed location.
- People with reduced mobility due to physical or neurological diseases.
- Parents with limited flexibility in terms of time.
- Working people who can only keep appointments very early or very late in the day.
- People who live in regions without adequate psychotherapeutic care (too few psychotherapeutic practices or too long journeys to the next city),
Therapy via the Internet can also take place anonymously. It can also be people seeking help who, out of shame and fear of stigmatization, do not want to go into psychotherapy. In addition, online therapy offers can appeal to new target groups, for example, adolescents and young adults, who are often very interested in digital media.
Finally, online therapy can be a first step in which the person seeking help can gain experience with psychotherapy. As a result, some patients may decide to continue working in face-to-face psychotherapy.
It Boosts Sense of Self-Determination
Because patients are more self-determined in online therapy than in conventional psychotherapy, they have a stronger feeling that they have achieved their successes themselves and not with the help of a therapist. This can be very motivating to keep working on overcoming your problems.
Online Therapy Offers Diversity and Flexibility
Theoretically, there are endless possibilities of what online therapy can look like and how they can be combined with conventional psychotherapy.
In this way, the type and extent of therapeutic support can be individually tailored to the symptoms and needs of the patient. For example, more appointments can be offered in the therapist’s office if the patient needs more support. If he is better and needs less support, a transition to more online therapy can take place.
At the same time, internet-based approaches offer many opportunities for a patient to work intensively on changing their problems between therapy sessions. Each patient can decide for themselves how often and how intensively they work on their problems.
He is also flexible and can work on the tasks when the time suits him best. If the communication between therapist and patient takes place in writing (for example by e-mail), this has the advantage that both can calmly think about the statements of their counterpart and what they would like to write themselves. In this way, a patient can possibly describe his problems, his current state, his feelings, etc. better than if he had to do this spontaneously in the therapy session.
