Opinion on Online Therapy

Can't say that I would do it....unless it was with my regular shrink.

 

My concerns would be two:

1. Observation is a key aspect of communication for both the therapist and patient. If one can look at the person in front of one then a fuller communication can occur and judgement follows. If one cannot look to observe then communication is limited.
2. Privacy/Security: Therapy is confidential and in most free countries protected by civil laws. Chance are that online sessions are recorded or stored in a database for later review by the therapist, just as a live therapists would take notes during a session. I would not want my therapy sessions stored on a server, even if the only data logged was IP address, date-time and other meta data.

Statistically, the majority of live therapy gets poor results. I'm don't want to negate anyone's benefits here, if you did benefit, then that's great. But the truth is that one may get therapy for years with little results, or the therapy becomes maintenance based. (doctors and therapists know that, which is why the trend today is to resort to drugs to treat symptoms, and give up on cures) That said, how would online therapy be any more successful than live therapy since all therapy depends upon communication, and online therapy communication is limited at best and lacks true observation necessary to be able to make competent decisions.