E-therapy Essentials

Everything you ever wanted to know about e-therapy, but had the good sense not to ask. This section explores how face-to-face psychotherapy and online e-therapy are meaningfully different. If you insist, you may impetuously skip this section and proceed directly to the of your first e-therapy email.

What is e-therapy?

Good question! Simply put, using the Internet for therapeutic interactions is called e-therapy. Ah, but if we dig a little deeper, we discover that there's so much more to this story...

Most online therapists agree that the Internet offers exciting new ways to deliver therapeutic services. Beyond that, opinions about what e-therapy is, or should be, tend to diverge rather like Tourists in Paris. One major schism erupts over the very essence of e-therapy: is e-therapy the same as face-to-face psychotherapy? Against all reason, some tragically misguided therapists seem to think so. They apparently think they can, and should, port traditional psychotherapy — lock, stock and barrel — into cyberspace. Good luck with that! More highly-evolved therapists, such as myself, realize that text-based distance therapy offers a different kind of therapeutic interaction with its own distinctive set of features.

And that's just one of many issues being debated — as they should be. It's all part of making sense of the Internet and how we can best use it to make life better. Emerging from all the clamor and confusion, one reality is becoming increasingly clear: for those with a pioneering spirit, this new realm has a great deal to offer.

And we've saved a place for you...

What could possibly go wrong?

Hmmm...

Well, that's a fine how-do-you-do! But I see what you mean. And I must admit there's a slight chance you won't like it, or even (Yikes!!) that e-therapy may not meet your needs — at all! Perhaps, it would be wise to take a few moments to familiarize yourself with some of e-therapy's distinctive features. Then you'll be in a much better position to make an informed choice, when you decide if e-therapy is right for you.

The form of e-therapy offered here is email or IM therapy.

Therapy?

Is e-therapy a legitimate form of therapy? If we can believe the industry-wide reports from countless enthusiastic users, e-therapy clearly offers significant therapeutic benefits.

Psychotherapy?

This is important: e-therapy is not face-to-face psychotherapy. When the day comes that most of us have nearly instantaneous audio-visual communication, e-therapy and face-to-face psychotherapy might be very much alike. That's likely to happen someday, but not today. As is, the two processes share the goals of correcting dysfunction and promoting well-being, but they also differ in a number of hugely important ways. E-therapy is not a universal substitute for face-to-facepsychotherapy. Rather, it is an alternative therapeutic process that can help some (not all) people with some (not all) types of issues. In other words, comparing face-to-face psychotherapy and e-therapy is very much like comparing apples and oranges: they're both good for you, but they aren't the same.

Confidentiality

Requesting your mangled care insurance plan to "cover" you for psychotherapy may seriously compromise the privacy of your personal information. As I write this, insurance typically does not cover e-therapy; you'll need to pay for it yourself. In return, you'll have the opportunity to protect your personal information.

Information density

Email therapy offers all the benefits and limitations of the written word. You wouldn't expect a diagnosis or treatment from a book or a letter; similarly, you shouldn't expect or accept them from an email exchange. What you can expect is highly-focused assistance, free from the social baggage that often accompanies face-to-face psychotherapy.

Treatment, education, and autonomy

Face-to-face psychotherapy includes aspects of both treatment and education. In contrast, e-therapy is more like an educational process. The "e" in e-therapy might well stand for "education".

Therapeutic encounters

For better or worse, in sickness and in health, Oops! Sorry, wrong speech! Face-to-face psychotherapy typically occurs at a pre-specified time and location. In contrast, e-therapy offers the user ultimate flexibility.

Legal/ethical guidelines: does "foggy" have two g's?

Face-to-face psychotherapy has well-established rules of engagement; e-therapy, on the cutting edge, is still very much in the process of defining itself.

Is e-therapy for you?

Let's summarize why you might want to choose e-therapy.

It works. Reports from the field indicate that e-therapy with a trained professional is almost always helpful.

It's convenient. In email therapy, you decide when, where, how, and how much you participate. You are in control.

It's fast. Instead of waiting weeks, or longer, for an appointment, you typically get email responses within 24 to 48 working hours.

It's cost-effective. Offline, you can take all the time you need to understand and compose emails, to formulate exactly what you want to say. In addition, you won't forget 80% of what has been said because everything is written out for you. In effect, the actual time your e-therapist spends reading and writing emails to you is like a therapy concentrate.

It's private. If you are working with a professional, e-therapy is as private as you want to make it, potentially more private than psychotherapy.

It's accessible. Even if you're living in Antarctica, and the nearest therapist is whole bunches of miles away, you won't need to drive, fly, swim, hop, skip, or jump to reach an e-therapist. If you have access to the Internet, you have access to e-therapy.

If you like the features e-therapy offers, you are ready to proceed.

 See you there!

Fees

Email exchange fees are based on the time it takes me to read and reply to your emails. The basic rate is only .75 per minute of my time (comparing rather favorably to the roughly $2 per minute commonly charged for face-to-face psychotherapy.) Here's how it works. To start an email exchange, along with your first email you purchase a package of email processing time. For each email you send me, I will let you know the time it takes to read and reply to that email as well as how much time remains in your “time bank.” Purchasing additional packages adds more time to your time bank. If you complete your work with time remaining in the bank, fees for the remaining time will be promptly refunded.

There are three package sizes available: 60, 180, and 240 minutes at $60, $150, and $209 (US), respectively. The 180 minute super-saver package, comes with a surprise 20 minute bonus. That's 200 minutes for the price of 180! But wait! There's more! The 240 minute super-duper-saver package comes with an astonishing 30 minute bonus! I may joke about it, but make no mistake, the bonuses are real.

You are free to cancel a package at any time and for any reason. If you do, however, you lose any bonus time associated with that package; your refund being calculated on the basis of the remaining basic package, without bonus. The email prices and bonuses offered here may be changed at any time.

For the first-time e-client, I also offer a single, one-time only, email package of up to 30 minutes @ $30 (US). This email is intended for someone who has a simple, brief question he or she would like to get a professional's opinion on, or the new e-client who wants to try out a single, brief email before signing up for a larger package.

You're in charge!

If you want a $25 dollar answer to a particular email, all you need do is request it ("please do not spend more than 25 minutes on this email."), and that's exactly what you will get! Using time limits means you're in control and there are no monetary surprises. It's one easy way for you to guarantee that our exchange stays within your financial comfort zone.