Since the pandemic there has been a significant rise in Telehealth options for healthcare. In some ways this has been very helpful for making therapy and doctor visits more convenient, as well as provide more accessibility for people needing it. On the surface, this looks like a great option for people who lead very busy lives. In some cases, with mental health the person may be crippled by their condition or otherwise burdened by life so severely, telehealth might be their only option.
However, doing therapy in person has significant advantages. Going to a therapist’s office can create a sense of calm, as the brain can start associating the location as a safe space where they can be themselves and that healing is what happens when they arrive. Although this frequently does not start off that way as going to a therapist at first can create feelings of anxiety. As time goes on, and the therapist-patient alliance grows along with trust, going to therapy can go from having a sense of dread to a much more positive feeling.
This can be especially true if the patient’s home life is challenging due to difficulties with their partner, roommates, or parents. Being able to have a sense of safety is a critical component to healing. It is also worth considering how much goes on in a face-to-face meeting. With Somatic work, body language and physical sensations are of paramount importance and telehealth can make tracking such things much more difficult. In the case of EMDR therapy, it can become completely useless to do over telehealth. Although, I have personally conducted EMDR and Somatic therapy sessions over telehealth, they never seemed to be quite as effective compared to an in-person visit.
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