Everything you ever wanted to know about e-therapy, but had the good sense not to ask. In this section, we'll examine how face-to-face and online therapy are seriously different. If you prefer, you can impetuously skip this section and proceed unenlightened to the preparation and launch of your first e-therapy email.
What is e-therapy?
Simply put, using the Internet for therapeutic interactions is called e-therapy. Ah, but if we dig a little deeper, we discover there's so much more to this story...
Most online therapists agree that the Internet offers exciting new ways to deliver therapeutic services. Beyond that, opinions about what e-therapy is, or should be, are as plentiful as stars in the night sky. One major schism erupts over the very essence of e-therapy: is e-therapy just like face-to-face psychotherapy? Against all reason, some tragically misguided therapists seem to think so. They apparently think they can, and should, port traditional psychotherapy — lock, stock and barrel — into cyberspace. Sorry. Won't work. More highly-evolved therapists, such as myself, realize that text-based distance therapy offers a different kind of therapeutic interaction with its own distinctive set of features.
And that's just one of many issues being debated. It's all part of discovering how to best use the Internet to make life better. Emerging from all the clamor and confusion, one reality is becoming increasingly clear: for those with a pioneering spirit, this new domain has a great deal to offer.
And we've saved a place for you —
Would you like to join us?
