Mental Health Care Goes Online: Practitioners' Experiences of Providing Mental Health Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Feijt, Milou A.; Kort, Y.; Bongers, I.M.B.; Bierbooms, Joyce; Westerink, Joyce H. D. M.; IJsselsteijn, Wijnand A.

doi:10.1089/cyber.2020.0370

Cited by 183 publications

(201 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…For the quantitative phase of the study, we developed an anonymous online survey with 43 questions to answer the research questions. The survey was designed following the recent literature (Feijt et al, 2020 ; Geller, 2020 ; Inchausti et al, 2020 ; Mitchell, 2020 ) and a content analysis of the email messages posted on psychotherapy listservs. For example: I have asked my office landlord for rent reductions, and what will make you feel safe for yourself and your patients in order to return to the office?…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions? Factors Associated with the Decision to Provide in-Person Therapy in the Age of COVID-19

Shklarski

Abrams

Bakst

2021

J Contemp Psychother

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a new reality on the delivery of psychotherapeutic services. Therapists have had to rapidly adapt to telehealth therapy using various video conferencing technologies while working from spaces that were not necessarily designed for delivering therapy sessions. While COVID-19 continues to be present in therapists’ lives and shapes how they provide services, answering the question of whether to meet with clients in person again is a decision laden with complexity and ambivalence. In this mixed-method study, surveys with 169 therapists and interviews with 17 therapists were used to determine the factors that currently influence their attitudes toward resuming traditional in-person psychotherapy in light of COVID-19. We focused on the therapists’ personal and professional characteristics to assess their plans to continue with telepsychotherapy or return to a traditional psychotherapy setting. Our findings suggest that positive attitudes toward telepsychotherapy, the lack of an effective vaccine, clients’ satisfaction with telepsychotherapy, insurance reimbursement for telepsychotherapy, and negative attitudes toward wearing masks during sessions influenced therapists’ decisions on whether or not to return to traditional in-person psychotherapy in the age of COVID-19.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Feijt et al ( 2020 ) qualitatively explored the experiences of 51 therapists from the Netherlands regarding telepsychotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic using an online survey. Data were collected from April 1 to May 5, 2020.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions? Factors Associated with the Decision to Provide in-Person Therapy in the Age of COVID-19

Shklarski

Abrams

Bakst

2021

J Contemp Psychother

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“…Studies have highlighted similar technical difficulties in online therapy wherein loss of connectivity often causes interruptions, affecting the flow of the session (Feijt, de Kort, Bongers, Bierbooms, Westerink and IJsselsteijn, 2020). Similarly, members’ commitment has also been documented as an important challenge (ColÓn and Friedman, 2003), with some studies reporting attrition rates as high as 50% in the Indian context (Amulya, 2020).…”

Section: Digital and Cultural Adaptationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitator lessons from online psychoeducational group for relational well‐being in India during COVID‐19 pandemic

Joshi

Chatterjee

et al. 2021

Journal of Family Therapy

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The COVID‐19 pandemic has affected the mental health of individuals, along with their couple and familial relationships, necessitating an effective response. Teletherapy offers an option to address these relationship concerns amidst pandemic‐specific mobility restriction. Against this setting, Sukoon, a project of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India, initiated a five‐session online psychoeducational group series on relational wellbeing. This paper explores facilitator’s reflections and learnings based on session documentation and facilitator notes. Preparing well and selecting participants carefully for online psychoeducational groups was critical to success. Effectiveness was enhanced by flexibly adapting the therapy process (didactic and interactive elements) to fit online delivery and the cultural context. Identifying the potential of online psychoeducational groups for relational wellbeing could make it a valuable addition to the COVID‐19 pandemic mental health response toolkit. Practitioner points Effective preparation and careful selection of group members is key to the success of therapist facilitated online psychoeducational groups. Psychoeducational groups comprising didactic and interactive elements are more suitable for effective online group processes. Use of co‐facilitators managing various channels of communication (audio, chat) is important. Group facilitators need to be cognisant of challenges of online medium and address them in an ongoing manner.

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“…10 But even with these in place, the online setting clearly disrupts many of the perceptual affordances that characterize the traditional micro-world enacted in face-to-face therapy. For starters, the other is only partially visible, such that relevant moments in posture-taking ("hand-movements, but also general demeanor") will be hidden from view and "smell", an important non-verbal clue, is altogether absent (Feijt et al 2020). Furthermore, there are various sources for breakdown in the interactional flow: bad internet connections disrupt the rhythm of the interaction, direct eye-contact is nearly impossible on standard online video communication platforms such as Zoom or Skype, and the typical ways in which we might encourage, reassure, or comfort another during an interaction (reaching out with a hand, say) are unavailable.…”

Section: Breakdown and Possibility In The Micro-world Of Online Therapymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual breakdown during a global pandemic: introducing phenomenological insights for digital mental health purposes

Grunsven

2020

Ethics Inf Technol

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Online therapy sessions and other forms of digital mental health services (DMH) have seen a sharp spike in new users since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having little access to their social networks and support systems, people have had to turn to digital tools and spaces to cope with their experiences of anxiety and loss. With no clear end to the pandemic in sight, many of us are likely to remain reliant upon DMH for the foreseeable future. As such, it is important to articulate some of the specific ways in which the pandemic is affecting our self and world-relation, such that we can identify how DMH services are best able to accommodate some of the newly emerging needs of their users. In this paper I will identify a specific type of loss brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and present it as an important concept for DMH. I refer to this loss as loss of perceptual world-familiarity. Loss of perceptual world-familiarity entails a breakdown in the ongoing effortless responsiveness to our perceptual environment that characterizes much of our everyday lives. To cash this out I will turn to insights from the phenomenological tradition. Initially, my project is descriptive. I aim to bring out how loss of perceptual world-familiarity is a distinctive form of loss that is deeply pervasive yet easily overlooked-hence the relevance of explicating it for DMH purposes. But I will also venture into the space of the normative, offering some reasons for seeing perceptual world-familiarity as a component of well-being. I conclude the paper with a discussion of how loss of perceptual world-familiarity affects the therapeutic setting now that most if not all therapeutic interactions have transitioned to online spaces and I explore the potential to augment these spaces with social interaction technologies. Throughout, my discussion aims to do justice to the reality that perceptual world-familiarity is not an evenly distributed phenomenon, that factors like disability, gender and race affect its robustness, and that this ought to be reckoned with when seeking to incorporate the phenomenon into or mitigate it through DMH services.

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Mental Health Care Goes Online: Practitioners' Experiences of Providing Mental Health Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 183 publications

References 16 publications

Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions? Factors Associated with the Decision to Provide in-Person Therapy in the Age of COVID-19

Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions? Factors Associated with the Decision to Provide in-Person Therapy in the Age of COVID-19

Facilitator lessons from online psychoeducational group for relational well‐being in India during COVID‐19 pandemic

Perceptual breakdown during a global pandemic: introducing phenomenological insights for digital mental health purposes

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