Telephone counseling (also known as telephone therapy, telephone-based or telephone-delivered psychological treatment) refers to the use of the
telephone
A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...
to deliver any type of psychological treatment or
therapy
A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx.
As a rule, each therapy has indications a ...
(such as
cognitive behavioral therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders.
Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and chang ...
) for
mental health
Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...
difficulties (like
depression,
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...
). Telephone therapy can be as effective as traditional, face-to-face therapy. Along with
online therapy, it is a type of
telepsychology service. In telephone-based therapy, there is verbal communication, but no
non-verbal communication
Nonverbal communication is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact (oculesics), body language (kinesics), social distance (proxemics), touch (Haptic communication, haptics), voice (prosody (lingui ...
which is present in video calls, for example.
Effectiveness
Psychological treatment delivered through the telephone can be as effective for adults with depression or anxiety as face-to-face therapy.
For adults with depression, telephone therapy can even be more effective than traditional therapy.
For adults with anxiety, telephone-based treatment can be more effective than having to be on a waitlist before receiving treatment. For telephone therapy to remain effective and accepted, it is important for practitioners to continue
professional development
Professional development, also known as professional education, is learning that leads to or emphasizes education in a specific professional career field or builds practical job applicable skills emphasizing Praxis (process), praxis in addition t ...
. This maintains the confidence in both individual and collective ability to deliver treatment over the telephone.
Advantages
Compared to in-person therapy, telephone-delivered psychological treatment might offer significant advantages to some people. By removing the need for the practitioner and their client to be in the same space, telephone-delivered therapy improves flexibility of the sessions, and makes treatment more accessible for people unable to travel because of illness, financial or time constraints.
By making treatment available in the privacy of one’s own home, it also provides a degree of
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Anonymity may be created unintentionally through the loss of identifying information due to the passage of time or a destructive event, or intentionally if a person cho ...
that is comforting to some people. This may reduce the concerns about the
stigma that some people may feel relating to mental health and seeking treatment with a traditional in-person therapist.
Disadvantages
In psychological treatment the
therapeutic relationship (also called the therapeutic alliance) between practitioner and their patient is seen as a central mechanism of change and improvement in symptoms. Some practitioners have raised concerns that the use of telephone may hamper the quality of this relationship.
However there seems to be no differences between telephone and face-to-face psychological treatment in the quality of the relationship formed
and both are effective ways of delivering therapy.
See also
*
Telepsychiatry
*
Online counselling
*
References
External links
About online and phone counsellingat the
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
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Psychotherapy by type
Counseling
Telemedicine