Making Virtual Psychotherapy a Relational Experience

3 CPD hours

In a climate of fear and isolation that equally affects us all, therapists are now being asked to help clients deal with the practical challenges of self-isolation in a time of danger and heightened anxiety—and doing so in isolation.  Worse yet, telehealth requires the sudden acquisition of new technical skills and facing any phobias we and the clients have about the use of technology.

Without the contact we and they value as the heart and soul of psychotherapy, virtual psychotherapy can feel distant and impersonal just when clients have an increased need for connection.  But it does not have to be!

This webcast addresses how to overcome the limitations of telehealth technology to make remote psychotherapy a warm and relational experience.

• Practical tips for making virtual psychotherapy feel personal and connected
• Resources for helping clients tolerate fear and loneliness
• Interactive neurobiological regulation: using our nervous systems to regulate the client’s nervous system

 Learning objectives

• Identify the challenges for clients and therapists of virtual psychotherapy
• Articulate 3 ways of decreasing technophobia
• Evaluate the impact of threat on the autonomic nervous system
• Identify interventions for regulating autonomic dysregulation
• Describe techniques that increase tolerance for fear and stress
• Define the ‘social engagement system’
• Describe uses of social engagement for telehealth

 Schedule 

• Challenges to helping clients in a time of pandemic
  • Fear of what will happen
  • Isolation or forced proximity
  • Moving from face-to-face to virtual psychotherapy

• Addressing technical challenges and technophobia
  • Transparency
  • Collaboration: “we are in this together”
  • Celebrating growth and mastery

• Fear and the body
  • “Inside threat” versus “outside threat”
  • The impact of danger on the brain and body
  • Somatic interventions for supporting immune system function
  • Mindfulness-based interventions for calming the body

• Increasing relational contact in virtual space
  • Making use of the social engagement system
  • Increasing feelings of “being fully present”
  • Capitalizing on somatic techniques for increasing relationality