Suffering in mental disorder is an enlarging problem of the word. I think, it is enough to say that one in six people experiences depression during its life and the number of those, who feel some kind of anxiety or panic disorder is unestimateable. These data are supported by the fact that number of prescriptions for antidepressants have increased almost two-fold in a decade.
The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) advises that in mild to moderate cases psychological therapies should be used instead of drug treatment. Psychotherapy would be a very good solution for milder mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, but in a lot of areas it is almost impossible to reach a therapeutist. Another reason why we don’t go to see specialists, because most of us can not find free time to visit any of them or always have something more important to do. The price of a session can be also a serious factor in avoiding therapy.
One possible way to reach these untreated people is the online psychotherapy. A well-known method, the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which focuses on helping people to solve problems and overcome negative, unhelpful or false thought patterns, would be a good method to help. With the involvement of well-educated psychologist this can be a safe way to approach those who suffer because of a mental illnesses.
All of those who oppose this method say that the interpersonal communication, the most important factor in psychotherapy is sacrified during online therapy. On the other hand, research studies established that following an 8 month long period with the help of online therapy twice more patients recovered from mild or moderate depression.
Another advantage of the online therapy is that patients can keep their anonymity during the sessions.
As a take home message, we can say the online CBT has future prospects. We curiously await for your comments if you have experiences on this topic.