Cybercounseling: A New Modality for Counselor Training and Practice

Abstract

The practice of professional career counseling has evolved to include various computer technologies and services including the Internet. Due to the Internet becoming a pervasive part of society, increasing numbers of mental health practitioners around the world are incorporating the electronic medium into their service delivery. As increasing numbers of counselors use the Internet, professional organizations are developing ethical guidelines for practitioners to follow. This paper discusses ethical considerations related to cybercounseling and provides implications that practitioners should consider when evaluating the medium.

The Use of ICT in School Guidance: Attitudes and Practices of Guidance Counselors in Metro Manila, the Philippines

“…Tait (1999) acknowledged that fears of human relations becoming mechanized because of ICT are real, but suggested that human relations would not necessarily be diminished-only changed. The adoption of an ICT-based modality for counseling would demand that certain ethical and technical standards be set to govern the conduct of the counselor, ensure the safety of the client, and promote the counseling profession (Mallen et al 2005;McCrickard and Butler 2005).…”

Online/Cyber Counseling Services in the COVID-19 Outbreak: Are They Really New?

“…For each of these, there is a modern computer-mediated equivalent. Advanced letter composition regularly happens through mail and electronic bulletin boards; synchronous connections (i.e., those taking part at the same time as the pastoral/spiritual counselor or psychologist and counselee/client) incorporate voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP), video-conferencing apps, instant messaging (IM), and chat, which contrasts with short-message service (SMS), its phone-based counterpart ( Centore & Milacci, 2008 ; Kessler et al., 2009 ; McCrickard & Butler, 2005 ; Mallen & Vogel, 2005 ).…”

“…Pastoral/spiritual counselors or psychologists who have adequate technical ability can progressively communicate with their counselee/client through the online medium and/or undertake the whole progress online (Mallen & Vogel, 2005). The benefits of online/cyber counseling incorporate more noteworthy availability, reaching populaces that would not immediately look for face-to-face counseling, reasonableness, and ease of record keeping (Leibert et al, 2006;McCrickard & Butler, 2005;Rochlen et al, 2004). Moreover, Suler (2002) and Partala (2011) expressed that counselees/clients taking part in online/cyber counseling are less likely to feel powerless for revealing their individual data and also feel less ashamed about their issues, due to the anonymity related to online/cyber counseling.…”

Posibilidades de la web 2.0 en orientación educativa: un estudio exploratorio sobre su presencia en las web de los departamentos de orientación de secundaria = Affordances of web 2.0 in educational guidance: an exploratory study on the web presence in sec

“…Pero además, la incorporación de las TIC no está exenta de aspectos éticos (Mallen, Vogel y Rochlen, 2005;McCrickard y Butler, 2005;Valverde y Fernández 2013)y, por tanto, estos deben estar presentes en los análisis que se realicen sobre esta temática y hay que tomar conciencia de sus repercusiones cuando se intente ofrecer la tecnología como herramienta necesaria a los profesionales de la orientación. Evitar suspicacias como las relativas al cuestionamiento de su labor cuando se recomienda introducir las TIC o incluso disipar el miedo de algunos a que la tecnología pueda sustituirles en su labores de orientación, son aspectos que no deben obviarse (Sobrado, 2006).…”