Considerations and Strategies for Teaching Online Counseling Skills: Establishing Relationships in Cyberspace

Abstract

As technology advances and the use of online counseling becomes more routine, attention must be paid to instruction regarding online counseling skills. The authors present considerations for teaching basic online counseling skills to master's-level counseling students. Recommendations are made for helping students to establish and maintain therapeutic relationships online. Suggestions specific to counselor preparation and future research are provided.

Orienting to Emotion in Computer-Mediated Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

“…The second practice, affective inferences, often follows descriptions that do not clearly articulate an emotional impact, but nonetheless describe circumstances from which therapists can infer emotional consequences. This practice may also be used in everyday interaction, but its frequency is likely to be greater in psychotherapeutic approaches such as CBT, which are influenced by counselling skills that specifically advocate making reference to emotion (Trepal et al, 2007). Although commiserations and affective inferences are used in the same sequential position, following clients' responses to therapists' information-seeking questions, these orientations to emotion appear to be specifically designed to suit the local context of clients' prior turns.…”

Defining Internet-Supported Therapeutic Interventions

“…Unlike face-to-face situations, these cases necessitate identifying and locating clients and appealing to use external help from a distance. Fourth, because of the above-mentioned subjects, as well as others, the practice of online therapy necessitates that counselors receive specialized training covering all the unique characteristics of online clinical work and that professionals be equipped with special skills to enable the provision of quality service [57][58][59].…”

The Practice: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Training of Health Care Participants through Innovative Technology

“…Trepal, Haberstroh, Duffey and Marcheta (2007) focus on how to better train online counselors to perform their jobs. These ideas include, better forms of question asking, taking ethical issues into consideration, the ability to understand nonverbal cues during online interaction in order to monitor patients' feelings and reactions, and an overall better approach to education in the hope that doctors and patients, are better equipped with skills (Trepal et al, 2007). In doing so, better outcomes are anticipated, such as satisfaction and telecompetence.…”