Will The Counselor Online Become More Prevalent Than The Traditional Counselor?

By Author: Arnold Bucky
Total Articles: 3
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With slightly over a decade into its existence, online counseling is growing at a very rapid exponential rate. More and more practitioners are becoming therapists online and there are now literally thousands of online counseling websites with counselors from various backgrounds offering services with a wide variety of theoretical approaches. There is also a great umber of online therapy clinics coming into fruition where individual online therapists can gather and utilize the clinics web/server based resources to provide services. Even older therapists are putting their practices online and reaching clients worldwide. The question is, will online counseling become the predominant model of counseling surpassing traditional therapy in terms of the number of therapists and clients working together online?

A few years ago, one may suggest no, that online therapy at best would be a useful adjunct or alternative to face to face therapy, but primarily people would work with counselors face to face. However, communication technology has so vastly improved from 10, even 5 years ago, that video sessions are very fluid and a client ...
... and online counselor are able to conduct an online counseling session with ease from thousands of miles away across several time zones. Furthermore, insurance companies are starting to reimburse clients and online therapists for services rendered. This should not be of much surprise as the cost of a single online therapy session is far less than a traditional face to face session. It is not a stretch to conclude that insurance companies will see online therapy as a way to save money in terms of client mental health costs and therefore will likely continue to expand their collaboration with online counselors.

Also, educational institutions are starting to offer training programs specifically tailored to online counseling. This means there is going to be an educational credential solely recognizing an online counselor's expertise. For instance, do not be surprised if one day we find a Masters of Arts in Online Therapy or Doctorate in Online Counseling. This is promising because it shows the mental health field is taking seriously the reality of therapy online. The research field is also catching on as scientific journals dedicated to online counseling are finding their way into the mental health literature. Numerous empirical studies demonstrating the efficacy of online therapy are being conducted and will continue to be conducted as therapy online continues to grow.

What all this expansion and growth has in common is one thing. There is a growing acceptance by clients, clinicians, and academics alike that online therapy can be at least equally effective as traditional therapy in terms of successful outcomes and problem resolution for mostly the same reasons that traditional therapy is successful. As more evidence comes to light in support of the efficacy of online counseling it will continue to become a major component to the helping professions. If one considers that technology is a tool, then it is quite obvious that the mental health field is doing the right thing in utilizing this tool to reach out to more people than could ever be possible in traditional therapy.

Robert Morse, M.A. is the sole operator of the e-therapy service website http://rmetherapy.com. He can be contacted by email at contact@rmetherapy.com or by telephone at (800) 313-1169.

Sophisticated E-therapy website offering online counseling, internet therapy.For more details about Online Counselor and Online Therapist please visit our website.