Neuroscience
It’s not easy for people living on Scotland’s remote islands to find specialist psychological help. Susan Simpson and colleagues at Aberdeen’s Eating Disorders Service investigated the plausibility of using videoconferencing to deliver specialist therapy to six bulimia sufferers who lived in the Shetlands and the remote north east of Scotland. The technology allowed the clients to use a video link at their local clinic to see and talk to a therapist located hundreds of miles away in Aberdeen.
A concern with therapy via videoconferencing is that compared with meeting face to face, it might not be possible to build up the trust and rapport between client and therapist that is known to be so vital to successful therapy. But using a questionnaire-based measure of ‘therapeutic alliance’, Simpson and her team found their six clients had no trouble establishing a successful, rewarding relationship with their therapist via weekly videoconferencing. In fact, three of the clients said they would prefer video therapy to traditional therapy. Two clients had no preference and one said she would prefer face-to-face therapy because it would be more personal and private. By the end of the video therapy, three of the clients had recovered to the extent that they were no longer diagnosed with bulimia.
Interviewed afterwards, the participants said the video therapy was less intimidating than meeting a therapist face-to-face, and gave them a greater sense of control – after all, they could always turn the monitor off! The authors speculated video therapy might, therefore, be particularly beneficial to people with ‘shame-based’ difficulties such as eating disorders.
It wasn’t all positive: several of the local clinics had technical difficulties with the videoconferencing equipment. Also, the lack of soundproof rooms meant the clients sometimes feared other people might overhear their therapy sessions.
“Although the current sample is too small to draw any general conclusions, these initial findings suggest that video therapy leads to improvement in bulimic symptoms for some clients, and may be an acceptable means of treatment delivery for this client group”, the authors said.
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Simpson, S., Bell, L., Knox, J. & Mitchell, D. (2005). Therapy via videoconferencing: a route to client empowerment. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 12, 156-165.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Video therapy
It’s not easy for people living on Scotland’s remote islands to find specialist psychological help. Susan Simpson and colleagues at Aberdeen’s Eating Disorders Service investigated the plausibility of using videoconferencing to deliver specialist therapy to six bulimia sufferers who lived in the Shetlands and the remote north east of Scotland. The technology allowed the clients to use a video link at their local clinic to see and talk to a therapist located hundreds of miles away in Aberdeen.
A concern with therapy via videoconferencing is that compared with meeting face to face, it might not be possible to build up the trust and rapport between client and therapist that is known to be so vital to successful therapy. But using a questionnaire-based measure of ‘therapeutic alliance’, Simpson and her team found their six clients had no trouble establishing a successful, rewarding relationship with their therapist via weekly videoconferencing. In fact, three of the clients said they would prefer video therapy to traditional therapy. Two clients had no preference and one said she would prefer face-to-face therapy because it would be more personal and private. By the end of the video therapy, three of the clients had recovered to the extent that they were no longer diagnosed with bulimia.
Interviewed afterwards, the participants said the video therapy was less intimidating than meeting a therapist face-to-face, and gave them a greater sense of control – after all, they could always turn the monitor off! The authors speculated video therapy might, therefore, be particularly beneficial to people with ‘shame-based’ difficulties such as eating disorders.
It wasn’t all positive: several of the local clinics had technical difficulties with the videoconferencing equipment. Also, the lack of soundproof rooms meant the clients sometimes feared other people might overhear their therapy sessions.
“Although the current sample is too small to draw any general conclusions, these initial findings suggest that video therapy leads to improvement in bulimic symptoms for some clients, and may be an acceptable means of treatment delivery for this client group”, the authors said.
___________________________________
Simpson, S., Bell, L., Knox, J. & Mitchell, D. (2005). Therapy via videoconferencing: a route to client empowerment. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 12, 156-165.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- What Clients Think Cbt Will Be Like And How It Really Is
Some people expect cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to be more prescriptive than it is, and therapists to be more controlling than they really are. That's according to a series of interviews with 18 clients who undertook 8 sessions (14 hours) of...
- Nice Therapist, Shame About The Symptoms
By Dryden Badenoch, of The Relaxed Therapist. Medical outcome research tends to focus upon finding the best drug to treat a given disease. The patient's role is often no more than the repository of the disease and the recipient of the drug: their...
- Introducing The Super Shrink
From 'the archives', first published in the Digest 19/1/2004 When it comes to client recovery, it's not the type of therapy that matters so much as the individual therapist who's giving it - that's the message from a study by researchers...
- Successful Therapists Focus On Their Clients' Strengths
Research is increasingly showing that the success of therapy depends not on the theoretical orientation of the therapist, but on key therapeutic processes that cross theoretical boundaries. Two such processes are ‘problem activation’ – helping...
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When choosing a therapist, you’d be forgiven for wanting someone with plenty of experience. But then you might well be unaware of all the studies that, to psychotherapy’s embarrassment, have failed to find any association between therapist experience...