Reflections on Online Psychotherapy in the Age of COVID-19

Abstract

This article offers some reflections on current clinical practice in online psychotherapies in the age of the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing on examples from the authors’ own clinical practices, and informed by relevant literature, the article focuses on the implications of the transition from the consulting room to online cyberspace with regard to five themes: transition, the dynamics of administration, therapeutic space(s), working with unconscious dynamics and processes, and uncertainty in a time of uncertainty. As such the article represents a heuristic self-study, enhanced by the authors who are practitioners, educators, and researchers working as a group, appropriately enough, online.

Psychotherapy Practice, Education, and Training During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Members of the Editorial Board of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia Share Their Experiences

“…Professionally, I have been very busy, partly in the context of changing the focus of my work this year (from management to research), and partly in the context of post-COVID-19 travel and social restrictions of shifting academic supervision and lectures online-but also as a result of engaging with experiences of working online. As a result, I have been engaged in writing three articles about different aspects of the experience of the transition of therapy from face-to-face in-person settings to face-to-face, online platforms (Embleton Tudor et al, 2020;Ioane et al, 2020;Rodgers et al, 2000); in editing or co-editing three 14/20 special issues/sections of journals devoted to this topic; in supervising one piece of research on the subject; and in applying for a research grant to undertake a national survey of therapists' experiences of online therapy.…”