In person vs online therapy

I offer both video and in person sessions. Here are some considerations to help you make an informed decision about which option is best for you.

In full transparency, I’m a traditionalist who believes that therapy can only be experienced at its full impact in person. Therapy was never meant to be convenient, easy, or casual — and it isn’t “treatment.”

Therapy is a relationship, and oftentimes it’s the most intimate and revealing relationship we have in our entire life. And that just doesn’t fully translate through digital sound waves and a screen.

When I show up as your therapist, I’m fully attuned, present, and joining with you. This is meant to be the primary element of healing for you. In person, this energy is palpable in the room.

Online, I’m an image on a screen, often as tiny as a couple inches on your phone. So much of my subtle body language and dynamic shifts toward you is lost because your body is physically unable to sense and read my energy.

The same goes for me, too. When all I can see is your two-dimensional face and neck, surrounded by the frame of an iPad and the empty room around me, my body can’t read much and my mind needs to fill in the blanks by making my best guess as to what energy you’re actually putting out.

This is a major interruption in the attunement and co-regulation that is instrumental in your emotional and psychological healing.

It’s true that online therapy is more convenient. It’s definitely more convenient for the therapist, too!

But nothing that’s actually fulfilling and rewarding in life is convenient. Our subconscious doesn’t truly value things that are too easy, that didn’t require investment, effort, determination, and adequate amounts of stress and friction. That’s just how we are as humans.

Basically what I’m saying is that the stress and effort it takes you to schedule sessions, then plan travel time and make necessary arrangements around them, physically get yourself to the office, and show up as your whole, complete, and actual self in a room with your therapist, is part of what will heal you.

Through these actions you’re building an investment in yourself, your heart, and your mental wellness — which is everything. YOU are worth the stress of getting yourself to regular in person therapy sessions. The dividends are honestly priceless.

All that said, I also know that we are pulled in altogether too many directions these days and it may be too much to ask of yourself and others who rely on you to do all of your sessions in person at this moment in life. It’s why it’s still important to me to offer online sessions in my practice. In those cases I recommend a hybrid approach, with a commitment to attending in person at least every 2-3 sessions.

Ultimately, how you approach your therapy is your decision. And I want you to have as much information as possible about the choices before you, so that you can truly stand strong in the decision that will lead you where you want to go.

As a therapist who has spent half my career so far in person and the other half online, I will fully stand behind my stance that online therapy, while helpful in establishing the therapeutic change process, will never be as powerful as therapy in person.

And — truly — I would love nothing more than to help you experience that for yourself, if you’re willing.