Online Therapy with Jassy Timberlake, M.Ed., LMFT Contact Jassy

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Online Therapy?

Online Therapy is a conversation between you and a professional psychotherapist, either via phone, email or live chat. In addition, some online therapists use videophone or internet phone. (Please note that these are not options currently available through my Online Therapy website.)

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Are Online Therapy and face-to-face therapy the same?

No, they are not, but it is difficult to make comparisons between the two. For some life problems or people, there is no substitute for face-to-face therapy. If you seek out an online therapist, you may be referred to someone local for face to face meetings instead. However, for many people in a variety of situations, Online Therapy can be an effective form of psychotherapy. I've outlined some of these below:

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Why do people choose online therapy instead of face-to-face therapy?

There are all kinds of reasons why people choose online therapy over traditional face-to-face therapy. Some are pragmatic, some are emotional and some are a bit of both.

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Convenience of Online Therapy

Some people live in remote areas and do not have access to face-to-face psychotherapists. Even some living in more urban areas look for professionals with particular skills and are unable to find them locally.

  • People who have busy lives enjoy the freedom of choosing when and how they can connect with an online therapist.
  • People who work in the military or in large corporations are constantly moving around as part of their job. For these people, online therapy has been shown to be an effective alternative and it allows them to maintain a continuous relationship with the same therapist, regardless of where they currently live. Those who travel as part of their job find that scheduling regular appointments is easier than trying to make time for face-to-face psychotherapy.
  • You might prefer online therapy because it allows you to write your thoughts down at your own speed. You may be the kind of person who prefers to ?write things down' in order to clarify what you are thinking and feeling. Just reading these back to yourself can be very helpful. Another benefit is that Online Therapy allows you to keep transcripts of emails and online live chat sessions so you can re-visit these interactions with your therapist, clarify a point you found confusing or review the changes you've made over time.
  • Are you a busy parent who can't find a babysitter? Maybe between work and family you have very little time to be at home and would rather have one less reason to be away from it. Online therapy allows you to schedule sessions in your home while saving you time, and the hassle and expense of finding childcare, paying for gas, parking and fighting traffic. In addition, many report more consistent therapeutic benefits as fewer sessions have to be cancelled because of unexpected emergencies.
  • Often times people with disabilities or chronic illness have trouble finding accessible offices for face-to-face therapy or may be reluctant to commit themselves to the amount of time and travel it takes to attend therapy because of their variable levels of strength and pain. Working from home minimizes these concerns.
  • Still others report that they just like the comfort of being in their home and talking to an online therapist.
  • In other words, there are all kinds of pragmatic reasons why people can benefit from online therapy and many simply prefer the freedom that online therapy provides.

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Emotional Reasons for Online Therapy

Some people also feel safer working with therapists online for a variety of reasons:

  • You might be uncomfortable talking about some issues, like your body, your sexuality or talking about deeply disturbing issues like having been sexually abused. In your own home you may feel more comfortable facing these issues directly, especially if you've avoided dealing with them in face to face psychotherapy in the past.
  • Maybe you know how helpful online supportive chats can be for people with similar issues and are most comfortable in this format, but now want more individual attention.
  • You might feel out of sync with your personhood and your body because of a facial or body disfigurement. Social stigmas attached to physical differences may feel like an impediment. Maybe you have found a degree of freedom to be yourself through the internet that you aren't able to duplicate in face to face interactions with others. Scars, weight gain, even stuttering can cause people to shy away from getting help because of bias they pick up from others. These and other folks wary of face-to-face contact feel less embarrassed and encumbered when they pursue online therapy.

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Are there people for whom Online Therapy is not advisable?

Yes.

  • Suicidal or Serious Crisis.
  • If you are suicidal or feel you are in serious crisis, Online Therapy isn't for you.
  • Online Therapy, while helpful and effective for many problems, is no substitute for face-to-face help during a crisis.
  • If you are having suicidal thoughts, don't put it off: seek immediate help.
  • If you are in the USA, you can call 1-800-Suicide.
  • From outside the USA, look in a phone book for a local mental health provider or go to the nearest hospital emergency room and request help from the medical personnel on duty.

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Other Challenges

  • Problems expressing yourself: People who may not find Online Therapy helpful are people for whom written expression is challenging.
  • Difficulty reading: People with dyslexia sometimes misread and can misunderstand what is being written to them. Sometimes it takes a while via email or in live chat to clarify misunderstandings that could be quickly cleared up in a face-to-face session. This is one of the pitfalls of text conversations.
  • Trusting others or feeling unsafe: If you have big trust or safety issues, it's harder to develop a trusting therapeutic relationship with an online therapist. And, because trust is required in a good working relationship between a client and therapist, it means that it's also more challenging to be effective as a therapist. Not impossible, just more challenging.
  • Technology Problems: Just as cars can break down causing missed appointments, technological snafus happen in on-line therapy as well. You can lose your modem, a dial tone, or the server can go down. When it is your therapist's network fails, it can feel like you've been abandoned, even if the therapist had nothing to do with the problem! Technological problems can cause your therapist to be absent from the chat room at the appointed time, or not respond to an urgent email, when you were relying on them at that moment for a comforting word, reassurance or support.

While many of these issues can be addressed in a variety of ways, they present real limitations to the medium of online therapy.

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How do I know what kind of Online Therapy will work for me?

For anybody considering online therapy, an ability or willingness to talk fairly openly about yourself is a prerequisite for entering therapy.

Live Chat

If you are somebody who is at home on the internet, likes to write and can type fairly fast and/or are comfortable expressing yourself through the written word, then live chat may work well for you.

Email Online Therapy, Telephone, Video Conferencing

If you tend to be a slow typist, then email Online Therapy may work better for you as it allows you to put down your thoughts at your own pace. Live chat may provide more of a challenge to people who type slowly, particularly as live chats are time limited. If this is your situation, you may be better off looking for an online therapist who uses video conferencing or internet phone.

Since therapists in face-to-face therapy rely heavily on visual cues from a patient (body language, tone of voice, etc.), people working with online therapists often find themselves having to be a little more verbally revealing as the therapist is not in a position to access clues through normal channels. If you tend to be more comfortable expressing yourself in gestures, video conferencing may be a better fit.

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Is Online Therapy private and confidential?

I value confidentiality highly. However, internet communication is not a perfect science. To maximize security and confidentiality, I use:

  • A secure, web-based messaging system instead of regular email. (Regular email is akin to sending a postcard through snail mail.)
  • In addition, my online therapy office is a chat room that has a password and only permits the therapist and one other person to enter at any given time.

You can also take steps to keep your therapy confidential and safe:

  • Don't use a work computer to store your email therapy conversations or transcripts from your live chat sessions.
  • Take extra care to address emails when writing to your online therapist. Always double check the email address before hitting Send.
  • Safeguard the password for your online Online Therapy email and chat room.
  • Do not allow other people access to your personal computer if you have therapy transcripts.
  • Make sure that any hard copies of your therapy sessions, either email or transcripts from live chat, are stored in a secure place.
  • NEVER send credit card or payment information via regular email. Unless you are using an encrypted email messaging system, your personal information is not safe.

The only exceptions to any psychotherapist's confidentiality rules are situations in which you indicate that you either plan to kill yourself or hurt and/or harm somebody else. In these situations, as a mandated reporter therapists are required to notify the appropriate authorities. Online Therapy is no different.

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How do I know that you are a real therapist?

Buyer Beware is a useful warning to any person wanting therapy, whether in face to face contact, or in Online Therapy

Verify the credentials of any online therapist by contacting the licensing board listed. Investigate the professional organizations that he or she lists to be sure they are members in good standing. Read through the ethical and legal standards of these organizations. As a member, the therapist has sworn to follow these codes of ethics.

Make sure you also have ways to contact your therapist by telephone as well as through internet service and be prepared to provide your therapist with this information as well. It is important to have alternative ways of reaching each other in case your internet service is offline and vice versa.

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Can I be anonymous and do Online Therapy?

While some online therapists do work with anonymous clients, I do not.

I will always ask for your name, mailing address and telephone number. In practical terms, there are times when internet service is interrupted or a computer malfunctions, in which case I will need to have a way to contact you offline. Additionally, building a strong therapeutic relationship online requires mutual trust. In the same way that you are able to verify my credentials in order to feel more trusting of me, I also would like to be able to verify that you are who you say you are as well.

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