Robot indeed. Psychotherapy is a “process-oriented” experience: being in the room with the client/therapist, noticing non-verbal communication, just sitting sometimes and observing each other, having eye contact. And you bet it’s awkward at times, by design. Healing and change are not about diagnosis, protocols, or communication “strategies” but is an experience uniquely different from any other.
Therapy by zoom is not personal therapy. And I could not fathom how Mr. Frank, a marketing guy, could boldly state that his screen therapy brings more people in: into what?
As a licensed psychotherapist, I chose not to conduct therapy by computer screen during covid because it omits the human aspect of therapy.
Before making that a decision, I did explore the idea of conducting tele-therapy when covid hit. As I was being “onboarded”, I learned that most tele-therapy companies/empires like Talkspace avoid the folks that most need therapy: those who consider suicide every day, those who cannot self-regulate consistently, those that cannot cope easily with every day life, adolescents starving for personal connection and empathy. With tele-therapy if a therapist assesses serious psychological distress, she is instructed to contact the management so those may be “referred out. “ Wouldn’t want the most needy to interfere with a smooth running machine.
But Mr. Frank is correct about one thing: mental health is a broken system, in great part because our healthcare system looks for shortcuts, to keep their bottom line profitable. Obviously Mr. Frank has grand plans for doing just the same, by selecting those well-adjusted and self-regulated folks who just need a little chat.
