Psychological counselor online

For the mild to moderate emotional distress, relationship problems, and personal growth demands that account for the highest clinical proportion, online psychological counseling provided by professionally trained and ethically compliant counselors has no statistical difference from offline counseling. It is even more suitable for some special groups. However, it has clear boundaries of application and is by no means the optimal solution for all psychological problems.

I came into contact with online consultation in 2020. I was embarrassed at first. I always felt that it was a little less "human" through the screen, until I received the first voice consultation visitor. The girl was an operator of a large factory in Hangzhou. She had suffered from insomnia for three consecutive weeks and did not even have the energy to change clothes and go out to the offline consultation room. For the first consultation, she nested on the carpet of the rental house, hugging the newly adopted stray cat. She cried without saying a few words. She said that she had mustered up the courage to go offline once before and sat across from a stranger on the sofa. She did not dare to cry loudly for fear that the other party would think she was hypocritical. After that consultation, she told me that if she had to go out for consultation, she might never speak out about being PUAed in the workplace.

Of course, not all counselors believe in the effectiveness of online services. Many of my predecessors in classical psychoanalysis still only accept face-to-face consultations. The last time I had dinner with a colleague who has been doing precision medicine for 15 years, he said that he had taken on a case that was temporarily transferred online. When the visitor talked about the relationship with his mother, his tone was calm throughout, saying, "I don't care a long time ago." If the visitor hadn't accidentally flashed his white-knuckled hand into the camera when he was drinking water, he almost missed the key sign of "emotional depression." For consultants who specialize in specialized genres, the micro-expressions, unconscious little movements of the visitor, even the gait of walking into the consultation room, and the distance between the sitting position and the consultant are all important materials for their work. This information can easily be missed online due to camera angles, network lags, and deliberate avoidance by the visitor, and it is normal for the effect to be compromised.

However, many counselors who work in the cognitive behavioral school (CBT) are fans of online consultation. My senior sister is a CBT counselor who specializes in adolescent mood disorders. She told me that online efficiency is much higher than offline. Originally, CBT required a lot of structured homework, such as emotion record sheets and automatic thinking checklists. In the past, offline work had to be printed out for the children to take home. Eight times out of ten, they were lost or forgotten to fill in. Now, online collaboration documents are sent directly, and you can type on the screen at the consultation site. Even if the child secretly avoided socializing last week, it is clear by looking at his check-in activity records. Even counselors who work in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) will also arrange emergency text support with visitors during non-consultation times, which is much more flexible than having to wait for a fixed consultation time offline.

It would be nonsense to say that there is no problem at all online. The biggest confusion now is the lack of qualifications of consultants. Oh, by the way, I helped my cousin screen counselors on a popular platform last month. There was a homepage with the title "Gold Medal Marriage and Family Counselor". Click on it to see the qualifications. The so-called "authoritative certification" is a 30-hour online training course, and even 100 hours of case experience is not disclosed. This kind of person is a scam regardless of whether he provides online or offline consultation. There is also the confidentiality issue that everyone is most worried about. I have heard before that there are unreliable platforms that secretly record the consultation process as teaching materials, and there are also visitors who accidentally record the screen themselves and later leak their privacy. These are risks inherent in the online model and cannot be avoided.

If you really want to find an online counselor, I will give you the most practical screening criteria: don’t believe in the gimmicks of “90% cure rate” and “recovering your relationship in one hour”. First check to see if the other person has a registration number from the Chinese Psychological Society, or holds a second- and third-level psychological counselor/psychotherapist certificate, and has at least 100 hours of case experience and continuous long-term training background. During the first consultation, if the other person does not take the initiative to mention a confidentiality agreement or tell you that the consultation process will not be recorded, just turn around and leave.

Of course, not everyone is suitable for online consultation. For example, for those who have serious self-injury or suicidal tendencies or psychotic symptoms, I will always recommend that they go to an offline psychiatric clinic first and cooperate with face-to-face consultations if necessary. In this case, there is really no way to do a risk assessment through the screen, and no one can afford it if something happens. There are also some visits that require face-to-face realism and feel that the counselors in the video are not warm, so there is no need to choose online. The one that suits you is the best.

A while ago, a teacher who was a teacher in her hometown told me at the end of the consultation that she had seen several local counselors before. When she heard that she did not want to get married, they advised her that "girls have to start a family when they get older." It wasn't until she found me online that she dared to say that she actually likes girls and doesn't want to live for other people's opinions. You see, for many people in small places, online consultation is the "second best" option. It is simply the only way for them to get professional psychological support.

In fact, to put it bluntly, everyone is confused about whether to go online or offline. In essence, they are still afraid that spending money will not be effective. But after you have been in this business for a long time, you will know that form is never the most important - whether he is sitting in the consulting room opposite you or thousands of kilometers away from the screen, the core is whether the consultant can really catch your emotions, whether he will look at you with judgment, and whether he has enough professional ability to help you sort out the problems that are trapping you.