When online and face to face counseling work together: assessing the impact of blended or hybrid approaches, where clients move between face-to-face and online meetings

ABSTRACT

During the global pandemic, therapists have offered distance-based approaches to counseling and psychotherapy, often online. Although online therapy is not a new phenomenon, until recently it was offered by a minority of practitioners. Now, following the changes imposed by the pandemic, it is familiar to the majority. Therapists and clients have met and worked together in separate spaces in new ways mediated by digital technology following rapidly changing regulations and these changes have had an impact on resulting therapeutic work. This article explores ways in which individuals may respond uniquely and collectively to changing contexts and offers possible explanations for these responses, drawn from existing psychotherapeutic research and leading to recommendations that additional assessment and monitoring procedures should be used with hybrid or blended approaches.