It works well.
Before this pandemic I restricted online work to Clinical Supervision. When the lockdown started I had to choose between online working or abandoning my clients altogether. Like most therapists I have a duty of care that I take very seriously and that meant I would inevitably choose to continue to be there for those people I was supporting.
I wondered though how it would alter the work and I was especially concerned with how I could safeguard people’s confidentiality. In the first week or two I found it exceptionally difficult and emotionally draining. I thought it just wasn’t sustainable but in weeks 3 and 4 my experience changed as I realised that I could gather enough information from the subtlest changes in facial expressions, voice patterns, word pacing and breathing rhythms and my confidence grew in the knowledge that I could establish an empathic connection and enable a therapeutic process in my clients, even through the screen.
Now I am able to offer online brief counselling or longer term psychotherapy to anyone who would prefer to work on their difficulties in this way.