Some ideas to make video therapy 'more' rather than 'less than' in-person therapy

We’ve shifted.

What’s here?

When we’ve had difficult childhoods, challenges in life… it is easy to see change from the perspective of what is lost.  And we have lost - a lot.

And in the midst of the lost is some new….

Here are some thoughts about what can be gained from video therapy….

The comforts of home.

Instead of public transportation, driving, being en route from A to B….  we are at home.  You can make your favourite tea… sit in your favourite chair… 

In video therapy the container becomes a shared responsibility between therapist and client.  How would you like the room to be for your therapy?  

Do you want more light?  A favourite scent?  A bit warmer?  It’s all there for you to make the room what you want it to be.

It’s also your responsibility to provide yourself with quiet, privacy, kleenex...

This is about your agency, your responsibility, and your comfort.  Wonderful topics to explore.

A new lens from which to explore.

Social distancing and the health, family, and financial impacts of coronavirus have moved us to online therapy.  For an ongoing therapy this is a major therapeutic event.  It is a change neither client nor therapist initiated yet it is a major change to what therapists call the frame - the set-up of therapy.

As the immediate stressors of the pandemic are processed I see issues arising in therapy that are much earlier developmentally.  For example:

"You are here but not here.”

Reflecting...

Body memories of parents absorbed in outside stressors or their own challenges and not present - here but not here.

Or a mother’s hospital visit during infancy.

OR…..

What is being evoked in this shift?  What is emerging that can now be spoken.  What unworried parts of you can us two adults hold that didn’t get the holding it needed way back when….?

We can use this time for valuable work.  

An experience of ourselves as more than physical.

Try this - try closing your eyes while on a video call or session.  Feel the energy of the person you are on call with.  Then step out of the energy.  Then step back in.  

What do you notice?

Can you sense your therapist/friend/colleague on the “other side of the screen?”.  Many people can.

We exist beyond those with whom we are physically present.  Our intention to work together is strong.  We can feel each other through this time and come to rely on connections even when they aren’t physical.

The idea of in person versus screen is actually a false difference.  A slippery slope argument.  We’re all physically here with each other.  The form our connection is taking may change.  We may be further away in measurable distance.  But we’re here on the planet - together.  And we can sense each other and come into secure attachment and connection knowing this.

Working through the resistances and challenges of online therapy is the work presented to us right now and there is so much richness in it.  Our world will never be the same.  We will never be the same.  Every day, every session we get to choose how we response, change, perceive….

Doing the work is still doing the work.