TeleHealth, Social Skills, and the Future of Psychotherapy

In the near future, it is very possible that most psychotherapy appointments will be held with two people sitting in their respective homes or offices, communicating via phone or video.

The field expects to see this major shift from traditional in-person appointments to TeleHealth due to the growing popularity of technology among younger generations. Similarly, the ease of telehealth, as opposed to leaving your office, taking the subway to your therapist’s office, and then schlepping back to your job, may be extremely appealing to some.

For example, food delivery services like GrubHub or Seamless have become incredibly popular in the last few years. With these apps, you don’t even have to talk to another human in your food delivery process; you use one simple interface to place your order quickly and easily. In reality, you end up paying more than if you had just called the restaurant directly, but, millions of people prefer to use these apps due to the convenience.

For the TeleHealth revolution to really take hold, there needs to be a generational shift. First, this new generation of clients needs to seek treatment. Second, capable providers need to want to and be capable of adapting to this new form of therapy. Given these issues, it may take a several years to make TeleHealth truly mainstream.

Read the Full Article on Psychology Today