Since its inception
Psychiatry
has been an in-person relationship, a face-to-face experience between a provider and a patient. Online, provides are frequently robbed of critical information. As a result, the effectiveness of therapeutic tools such as transference, counter-transference, emotional induction, or induced feelings is also compromised.
Online psychiatry is proven effective, but the emotional experience is very different from in-person sessions
Online psychiatry limits access to unspoken feelings, visual cues, and tactile experiences.
When a provider and a client come into contact, feelings flow between them. A well-trained provider studies these feelings and harvests them for meaning. These feelings may result from transference, projection, or emotional induction. Understanding these unspoken feelings aids provides in understanding their clients’ inner emotional life. A screen makes it difficult for therapists to pickup on these subtle communications and grasp a client’s core emotional issues.
If viewing people or events on screens were truly the same emotional experience as live and in-person, there would be no go to concerts, sports games, dance performances, or lectures; we could shut down theaters, museums, galleries, and schools, and switch entirely to screens.