In the last couple of years, online consultation has become more popular. There have been a lot of startups that are providing online counseling sessions. There are many other individual practitioners who have also adapted themselves for the online mode of consultation.
In the Covid pandemic time, online consultation became more popular in the form of helplines, video calling sessions and so on.
Online consultation has many advantages. It can help in taking sessions anonymously.
One can reach out to a psychologist without even letting know anybody! Hence it could be extremely confidential.
It has also addressed the commutation problem. People don’t have to travel farther places to meet a psychologist.
Through online mode, the choices of psychologists are also more. One can have counseling sessions with psychologists from different parts of the world, depending on their convenience. Therefore, one need not restrict oneself to the psychologist available in their place of dwelling.
While these advantages are there for online mode of counseling, there are disadvantages as well.
Online counseling sessions cannot be a substitute for in-person counseling sessions.
The personal warmth and appearance of the body language are much more clear in in-person sessions that give many more cues to the therapist apart from the information shared by the client.
In-person sessions also help in building the rapport between the counselor and the client in an easier way.
While online sessions are attractive for many, a few of the psychological issues are addressed better through in-person sessions than online counseling.
Therefore in-person sessions will still carry their uniqueness. However, the online mode could be utilised in a healthy way to make psychological counseling more accessible and available to people across the world.
