What's that?
You're not sure?
What's the problem?
What could possibly go wrong?
Hmmm...
Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do! But I see what you mean. And I must admit there's a slight chance you won't like it, or even (Yikes!!) that e-therapy may not meet your needs — at all! Perhaps, it would be wise to take a few moments to familiarize yourself with some of e-therapy's distinctive features. Then you'll be in a much better position to make an informed choice, when you decide if e-therapy is right for you.
The form of e-therapy offered here at Headworks is email therapy. Below, you can find "quick takes" spotlighting some of email therapy's more important attributes. For many of these, you can follow a hyper-link road to ever increasing detail. Please do take the time to read these discussions carefully before you fire off your first Headworks email.
Therapy?
Is e-therapy a legitimate form of therapy? If we can believe the industry-wide reports from countless enthusiastic users, e-therapy clearly offers significant therapeutic benefits.
details...
Psychotherapy?
This is important: e-therapy is not face-to-face psychotherapy. When the day comes that most of us have nearly instantaneous audio-visual communication, e-therapy and face-to-face psychotherapy might be very much alike. That's likely to happen someday, but not today. As is, the two processes share the goals of correcting dysfunction and promoting well-being, but they also differ in a number of hugely important ways. E-therapy is not a universal substitute for face-to-face psychotherapy. Rather, it is an alternative therapeutic process that can help some (not all) people with some (not all) types of issues. In other words, comparing face-to-face psychotherapy and e-therapy is very much like comparing apples and oranges: they're both good for you, but they aren't the same.
Apples and Oranges:
how
Psychotherapy
and
E-therapy stack up.
Confidentiality
Requesting your mangled care insurance plan to "cover" you for psychotherapy may seriously compromise the privacy of your personal information. As I write this, insurance typically does not cover e-therapy; you'll need to pay for it yourself. In return, you'll have the opportunity to protect your personal information.
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Information density
Email therapy offers all the benefits and limitations of the written word. You wouldn't expect a diagnosis or treatment from a book or a letter; similarly, you shouldn't expect or accept them from an email exchange. What you can expect is highly-focused assistance, free from the social baggage that often accompanies face-to-face psychotherapy.
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Treatment, education, and autonomy
Face-to-face psychotherapy includes aspects of both treatment and education. In contrast, e-therapy is more like an educational process. The "e" in e-therapy might well stand for "education".
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Therapeutic encounters
For better or worse, in sickness and in health, Oops! Sorry, wrong speech! Face-to-face psychotherapy typically occurs at a pre-specified time and location. In contrast, e-therapy offers the user ultimate flexibility.
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Legal/ethical guidelines: does "foggy" have two g's?
Face-to-face psychotherapy has well-established rules of engagement; e-therapy, on the cutting edge, is still very much in the process of defining itself.
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Is e-therapy for you?
Let's summarize why you might want to choose e-therapy.
It works. Reports from the field indicate that e-therapy with a trained professional is almost always helpful.
It's convenient. In email therapy, you decide when, where, how, and how much you participate. You are in control.
It's fast. Instead of waiting weeks, or longer, for an appointment, you typically get email responses within 24 to 48 working hours.
It's cost-effective. Offline, you can take all the time you need to understand and compose emails, to formulate exactly what you want to say. In addition, you won't forget 80% of what has been said because everything is written out for you. In effect, the actual time your e-therapist spends reading and writing emails to you is like a therapy concentrate.
It's private. If you are working with a professional, e-therapy is as private as you want to make it, potentially more private than psychotherapy.
It's accessible. If you have access to the Internet, you have access to e-therapy. Please note, that coin has another side: if you lose access to the Internet, or if a computer goes down on either end, e-therapy can be unexpectedly interrupted. Please see the caveat, below.
If you like the features e-therapy offers, you are ready to construct and launch...
Your First Headworks Email. See you there!
Important Caveat
If you are feeling particularly fragile or vulnerable, or if you cannot readily tolerate any unexpected technical difficulties that may temporarily bar access to your therapist, e-therapy is most likely not your best choice. You will likely do much better to seek the treatment and enhanced protection offered by face-to-face, traditional psychotherapy.
