ONLINE THERAPY - SHORT-TERM SOLUTION OR OPPORTUNITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC? AN OVERVIEW OF THE DYNAMICS OF THE THERAPEUTIC FIELD IN ROMANIA

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to rethink borders and spatiality. The main aim of this article is to explore the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in the face-to-face talking therapeutic work. The main solution recommended and adopted by therapists in this context is online therapy. Online therapy becomes an increasingly popular and convenient approach in mental and emotional health treatment due to its advantages in terms of mobility, geographical distance, time management, work-life arrangements, affordability and efficacy. Besides its undeniable advantages, online therapy also raises a number of issues regarding therapists’ education, the means of communication, confidentiality, intimacy, therapeutic relationship, etc. Briefly, online therapy makes us reconsider work, space, place, time, relationship, intimacy and personhood. This article draws on a secondary and primary exploratory research carried among Romanian therapists. The exploratory research is based on unstructured interviews with therapists trained in psychodynamic therapy who moved their face-to-face sessions online as a reaction to the new constraints engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic. While online therapy sessions used to be a niche service before the outbreak, they have now become the norm, thus ensuring continuity within an ever-changing environment and at the same time opening up to new therapeutic avenues (e.g., COVID-19-induced anxiety, depression, stress, etc.). Our focus is on how therapists work, on how they view the changes they are currently making to their work and on whether they envisage implementing these newfound solutions in the longer term once the crisis is over.