DISTANCE AND BOUNDARIES ISSUES IN THE TRANSITION FROM FACE-TO-FACE TALKING THERAPY TO ONLINE THERAPY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 Cover Image

DISTANCE AND BOUNDARIES ISSUES IN THE TRANSITION FROM FACE-TO-FACE TALKING THERAPY TO ONLINE THERAPY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
DISTANCE AND BOUNDARIES ISSUES IN THE TRANSITION FROM FACE-TO-FACE TALKING THERAPY TO ONLINE THERAPY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Author(s): Veronica Maria Mateescu
Subject(s): Social psychology and group interaction, Social Theory
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: online therapy; therapeutic boundaries; space and time boundaries; work-life balance; intimacy boundaries;

Summary/Abstract: The primary main aim of this article is to explore the changes and adjustments brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to the therapeutic process in the transition from face-to-face talking therapy to online therapy. Online therapy sessions, once a niche, have now become the norm in therapeutic work. This, more than ever before, raises the question of the efficacy of online therapy compared to face-to-face talking therapy. A related question is how the “classical” elements of in-person therapies (especially the psychodynamic, affective and relational-based), such as: the therapeutic alliance, the therapeutic containing space, the therapeutic relationship, etc. work in the on-line setting. This article draws on a primary qualitative exploratory research carried among Romanian clients who undergo a psychodynamic type of therapy and who transitioned from face-to-face to online therapy as a reaction to the new constraints engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic and after the measures were relaxed, the transition from on-line to in-person therapy. Our focus is on how they experience online therapy compared to face-to-face therapy in terms of intimacy, therapeutic frame and efficacy, as well as on the boundaries challenged, erased and created by the switch between the two types of therapy settings.

  • Issue Year: 66/2021
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 113-123
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: English
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