Does online therapy work?

For busy moms and professionals, we don’t have time for any extra hurdles. Women often get straddled with a ton of extra responsibility and sometimes even guilt for taking any time for themselves. 

Without turning this into an article about the mental load and feminism, let me say this: I believe in simplifying everything possible to prioritize your mental health needs.  

Online therapy or telehealth offers nearly all the advantages of in-person, traditional methods. I do a standard intake assessment, which is a bunch of questions about your life, childhood, the people closest to you, and what brought you to therapy. You choose how deep we go into these topics and have every right to say if something is off-limits. This is YOUR time.  

Then we will talk about what you hope to get from therapy. I will talk to you about how we might approach some of the goals and you can contribute your thoughts. From there, we will move along according to the goals we have agreed on. My plan is to not keep therapy in forever. Most people will stay in therapy for 3-6 months if they are working through defined issues, you might stay a year or two if you are working through something more difficult. If you want to pivot from the initial concerns that brought you to therapy, we can do that too.  

Research has shown that in-person methods of therapy produce comparable results to telehealth or online therapy. It can be challenging to have enough consistency in therapy for results to be clear if you often miss therapy by no fault of your own. Online therapy allows greater flexibility since calls can take place anywhere that you can have privacy. Many of my clients can meet while in their private office, on their lunch break, while their children nap, or even in their car (provided they are parked and in a safe place). 

I encourage everyone to get the help they need, even if it is a busy season. Investing in your mental health is an invaluable asset to your life. Take the first step today by emailing me at chudson@wellspacetherapy.org and setting up your first session.