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What is online theapy? 

More than a hundred years ago, when Freud 'invented' psychotherapy, which was a form of 'talking cure', he asked his patients to lie on a couch, while he would sit behind them out of view. He wanted to avoid eye contact, as is acceptable in ordinary human interaction, so that he could concentrate more effectively on their stories.

Surprisingly, online therapy fulfills Freud's dream, as it enables both therapists and clients to ignore fbody language, which has a significant role in face-to-fact interaction, although therapists are not specialists in body language. Online therapy focuses on the most important part of any therapeutic process: clients' stories.

During the last century, more thatn 400 psychotherapeutic approaches were developed, each of them based on different assumptions and beliefs that have gone far beyond Freud's original psychoanalytic theories. The common denominator of all these approaches is an attempt to create a safe place for the clients, where they can be aware of their feelings and learn how to cope with them.

Online therapy is not a new approach to psychotherapy but a new means of communication between therapist and client. Like telephone counseling, which has become widespread in recent decades, the Internet can provide effective therapeutic encounters. Meeting via the Internet makes it easier for clients to find the right therapist and the appropriate therapeutic approach. It also enables clients who find it difficult to undergo face-to-face therapy to find their way to treatment.

Online therapy started in 1955, and it is still developing. In the course of my research, I examined hundreds of sites offering online therapy. Most therapists do this through e-mail correspondence. The main disadvantage of this therapy is that it does not take place in 'real time' and there is no real dialogue between clients and therapists. Fewer therapists use chat rooms, which do take place in real time, as in face-to-face therapy, but such a correspondence is based on a rapis exchange of short sentences, creating a sense of breathlessness and stress.

The limitations of e-mail and chat therapy have created a false image of online therapy as less efficient than traditional therapy. To overcome these limitations, I have developed the first online clinic, which includes all the characteristics of face-to-face interaction with the special advantages of the Internet. The online clinic is based on a private protected forum, which belongs to the clients, where the therapist meets them only during weekly meetings. This is an elaborate forum that integrates writing and video-chat, while documenting the whole process.

Written communication has many advantages for psychotherapy, since it creates a higher degree of awareness, deepens the therapeutic process and accelerates it. One of the most important advantages of the online clinic is the possibility to document the entire process, since this enables the client to review the whole process, even after ending the therapeutic meetings. This improves the therapeutic relationships and creates trust, while also preventing therapists from manipulating their clients.

You can meet me on the open forum and ask for more information regarding online therapy.

 

If you choose to start a series of online therapy sessions, please write to me: 

drorgreen@gmail.com.

 

            Dr. Dror Green