During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people across the world have been advised to work from home in an effort to slow down the spreading of the virus. Within the field of psychotherapy, this meant that many psychotherapists who were used to seeing their patients in person transitioned to providing therapies online via videoconferencing, regardless of their previous experience or attitudes toward online psychotherapy. This survey study examined how psychotherapists' attitudes toward online psychotherapy is influenced by their characteristics and professional experiences during the sudden transition from face-to-face to online psychotherapy because of the pandemic. We collected real-time data from 145 psychotherapists from North America and Europe shortly after a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization. Participants reported on their past experiences with online psychotherapy, their preparations of their online psychotherapy sessions during the pandemic, the challenges they encountered in online sessions, and their attitudes toward online psychotherapy more generally. Within the context of this forced transition because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, most psychotherapists identified a somewhat positive attitude toward online psychotherapy, suggesting they were likely to use online psychotherapy in the future. Our findings suggest that psychotherapists' attitudes toward online psychotherapy are influenced by their past experiences, such as psychotherapy modality, clinical experience, and previous online psychotherapy experience as well as their transition experience during the pandemic and their geographic location. Within the limitations of this survey study, implications and future directions for research are described.
Remote therapy has been used by analytic therapists for quite some time, though many have been reluctant to use it regularly, out of concern that it might distort analytic frame and relational dynamics. Now the Covid-19 pandemic has forced therapists to make a sudden, across-the-board transition to remote therapy. This study reports on survey responses from 190 analytic therapists on their transition to online therapy via videoconferencing during the pandemic and their previous experience with remote therapy (the majority had such experience). During the pandemic they prepared themselves and their patients for the transition in a variety of ways. The majority of those surveyed reported feeling as confident and as competent in their online sessions as in their earlier in-person work. Moreover, despite technical and relational challenges, they remained as strong, emotionally connected, and authentic in their online therapy sessions as they were in person. These experiences during the pandemic led to more positive views of online therapy than they held before, but a majority still considered online therapy less effective than in-person sessions.
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