Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Mar 31, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 29, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Videoconferencing Psychotherapy: a literature review of the perspective of relationships for patients and psychologists
ABSTRACT
Background:
COVID-19 is spreading across the world and people are encouraged to maintain social distance. Technology is helping people and professionals to reschedule their agenda moving from “face-to-face” interactions to remote videoconferencing. Psychologists seek to both keep treating their current patients, and welcome new ones, given the current high demand for their services. Shifting treatment from face-to-face to the videoconferencing is not as simple as just moving the relationship online. In fact, both actors – the psychologist and the patient – miss the information that body language provides.
Objective:
A new theoretical framework is proposed to guide the design of future studies on the impact of the computer as a mediator of psychologist-patient relationships, and the influence of videoconferencing on the whole relationship process.
Methods:
A literature review has been conducted, screening studies focusing on communication, and the key concepts of the therapeutic relationship and therapeutic alliance.
Results:
Studies report that patients are generally satisfied with videoconference therapy in terms of the relationship with their therapists and the establishment of the “therapeutic alliance”. However, psychologists report difficulties in establishing the same quality of the therapeutic relationship and therapeutic alliance. The analysed studies lead us to interpret data under a differing perspective. A new model of relationship is proposed, along with further hypotheses.
Conclusions:
It might be important to consider the computer as having an active role in psychologists and patients’ relationships.
Citation
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Copyright
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