News About Online Counseling

Telehealth is beneficial for specific uses and patient populations. There is a large volume of research reporting that clinical outcomes with telehealth are as good as or better than usual care and that telehealth improves intermediate outcomes and satisfaction. The evidence of benefit was concentrated in specific uses.
Author: Annette M. Totten, Marian S. McDonagh, Jesse H. Wagner
Publish Year: 2020

Telehealth Benefits and Barriers – PMC – PubMed Central
Author: Shilpa N. Gajarawala, Jessica N. Pelkowski
Publish Year: 2021
Increasingly, telehealth technologies are being adopted and implemented as an efficient and cost-effective means for delivering and accessing quality health care services and outcomes.1 Telemedicine has the potential to reduce American health care spending by decreasing problems like medication misuse, unnecessary emergency department visits, and prolonged hospitalizations.1, 3 Telehealth provides access to resources and care for patients in rural areas or areas with provider shortages.

Online behavioral therapy found effective in depression
ModernMedicine.com | August 2009
“Researchers from the University of Bristol compared the effectiveness of 10 online sessions with a Therapist to normal treatment by a General Practitioner and found that 42 percent with online therapy recovered from depression versus 26 percent with usual care.”

Therapy online: Good as face to face?
CNN | August 2009
“A new study in The Lancet suggests that real-time chat therapy with a psychotherapist is successful in helping people with depression. Participants were randomly assigned to either receive online cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to usual physician care — which may include antidepressant medication — or to continue their usual care and be placed on a waiting list. The intervention consisted of up to 10 55-minute sessions, five of which were expected to be completed by the four-month follow-up. Of the 113 people who did online therapy, 38 percent recovered from depression after four months, compared with 24 percent of people in the control group. The benefits were maintained at eight months, with 42 percent of the online therapy group and 26 percent of the control group having recovered.”

Online Therapy, Online Psychotherapy & Online Counseling via Skype
Psychology Today Blog | August 2009
“It is surprising how effective Skype therapy sessions are. Although client and therapist may be thousands of miles apart, it feels like you are in the same room. This format is becoming very popular for people in remote areas or people who are unable to leave home for one reason or another. It is a lifeline for those with agoraphobia, who are trying to learn how to cope with venturing out.”

Phone therapy gets good reception
Northwestern University | October 2008
“People who are very socially anxious, who might be more hesitant to reveal information, they may feel more comfortable over the phone,” he explained. “On the other hand, somebody who tends to have more paranoid features and be suspicious and worried about the motivations of others, the phone may just aggravate that because they can’t see the therapist.”

Internet videoconferencing found effective for substance abuse counseling
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine | September 2008
“This study assesses treatment satisfaction and response to Internet-based group counseling for partial responders to methadone maintenance treatment. Patients testing positive for an illicit substance were randomly assigned to e-Getgoing or onsite group counseling and followed for 6 weeks. … Treatment satisfaction was good and comparable across conditions. e-Getgoing patients expressed a preference for the Internet-based service, reporting convenience and increased confidentiality as major reasons.”

Internet-based PTSD therapy may help overcome barriers to care
National Institute of Mental Health | November 2007
“Brett Litz, Ph.D. … and colleagues recruited service members … who had developed PTSD following the September 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon or from recent combat exposure. Forty-five participants first met with a therapist to determine their baseline PTSD and depression symptoms, and then were randomly assigned to one of two 8-week long, therapist-assisted, Internet-based treatments. After eight weeks of treatment, participants in both groups had fewer or less severe PTSD and depression symptoms, but those in (internet-based, self managed) Cognitive Behavioral therapy showed greater improvements than those in supportive counseling therapy. … These findings suggest the CBT-based online therapy may be an efficient, effective, and low-cost method of providing PTSD treatment.”

Randomized controlled trial shows telepsychiatry is as effective as in-person treatment
American Psychiatric Association | June 2007

Can online therapy ease depression?
BBC News | April 2007
“Online CBT – which allows real-time therapy sessions from the comfort of the patient’s home – may offer an alternative and is now being trialled in NHS patients. Domini Thomas, aged 56, from Bristol was asked by her GP if she would like to take part in the trial after being signed off work with stress. She had 10 sessions of 55 minutes, where she would log on to the site at an agreed time and the therapist would talk her through tackling various problems. After the course, Mrs Thomas was able to reduce the dose of antidepressants she was on and eventually come off them all together.”

The web: online psychotherapy effective
PhysOrg.com | November 2005
“Researchers at Linköping University in southern Sweden described a study involving 117 volunteers with “mild to moderate” depression. The patients partook in Internet chat sessions or group therapy sessions and used Web-based self-help materials. … The research team, which reported that the success rate for the Web-based program was the same as that demonstrated in face-to-face therapy in the past and that the online treatments decreased symptoms immediately.”

Email therapy effective for treating eating disorders
Royal Free Hospital | October 2005
“He (Paul Robinson, M.D.) recruited 97 participants with eating disorders from a university e-mail list for his study. “Roughly 80% of the cohort had received no previous treatment for their eating disorders”, said Dr. Robinson, a psychiatrist with the eating disorders service of Royal Free Hospital, London. “They were a population of people who don’t approach mental health care or any sort of health care, and they said they wouldn’t have done so if it hadn’t been for this program,” Dr. Robinson said in an interview.”

Telephone-Administered Psychotherapy for Depression
Gen Psychiatry | September 2005
Researchers from Kaiser/UCSF say phone counseling effective: “Patients showed significant improvements in depression and positive affect during the 16 weeks of telephone-administered treatment.”

Can telepsychiatry replace in-person psychiatric assessments? A review and meta-analysis of comparison studies
CNS Spectrums | May 2005
Researchers from Columbia conduct meta-analysis of 14 studies and find telepsychiatry effective:
“The current meta-analysis concludes there is no difference in accuracy or satisfaction between the two modalities. Over the next few years, we expect telepsychiatry to replace I-P in certain research and clinical situations.”