How does teletherapy compare to in-person therapy?

After the year that was 2020, teletherapy has become a much more popular option for people seeking therapy. Many therapists started doing teletherapy out of need, but then many clients and therapists found that it was a better fit for their clients lives, schedules, and recent studies have shown that it’s effective.

For many people, teletherapy can help lower the barrier to entry and some of the stigma around seeing a therapist. If someone has limited access to child care or can’t drive themselves to an appointment, having teletherapy as an option can make going to therapy much more possible than ever before.

What we’ve seen is that telehealth is essentially just as effective as face-to-face psychotherapy—and retention rates are higher – David Mohr, director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine

At My Denver Therapy, we’ve always offered teletherapy to our clients, in addition to in-person therapy at our offices in Denver, Greenwood Village, and Lone Tree. Some clients do all of their sessions via teletherapy, others do none, and some will switch to teletherapy for a session or two if it works out best for their schedule that day.

Is teletherapy still private?

When a therapist uses HIPAA-compliant technology like we do, we can protect our client’s privacy, just like we would with an in-person session. Of course, if a client chooses to take a session in the car with their kids or in the living room with their family, we’d suggest that clients do their best to join the session from a private, safe location where they won’t have to worry about privacy on their end.

We use a secure application that clients can use on their phones or computers to join a session, and in most cases, we’ll be taking the call from the same office or location where we do other therapy sessions.

Your session will likely feel very familiar to in-person sessions, and we’ll discuss the same things. The only change will be where you’re sitting for the appointment, and you might be able to save yourself a drive to an office.

How effective is teletherapy?

Especially now that many clients are on video conferences regularly, we have many clients that actually choose to do all of their sessions virtually. In some cases, people actually can find teletherapy more effective than in-person therapy because they feel more comfortable at home, don’t have to worry about feeling self-conscious about walking into a therapy office, and they feel less stressed about trying to make it to an appointment on time.

Your comfort level with teletherapy is going to be determined by your schedule, familiarity with technology, and what you want to get out of your therapy sessions. If you normally do your therapy sessions in-person, and your therapist offers teletherapy, it never hurts to give it a try and see if it might be the right fit for you.

While teletherapy has been proven to be effective, text-based therapy services, like TalkSpace and BetterHelp, have been proven to be problematic for people. Therapists and their clients can become easily distracted by emails, notifications, and text messages on their phones, and it can be difficult for therapists to fully understand the tone and mental state of their clients over text.

Is there teletherapy for couples?

There is, and we actually use teletherapy for many couples who come to see us for therapy. Especially when both people work, it can be tough to find a time outside of work to get together for a therapy session. With teletherapy, we’re able to help make couples therapy possible, even with challenging schedules and travel. Especially when couples are facing challenges, sometimes teletherapy can help communication go more smoothly when everyone isn’t in the same room.

Does teletherapy work with insurance?

If your therapist accepts insurance, there’s a good chance that your sessions will be covered the same way that they would be in-person. We’re out-of-network providers for PPO insurance, but you’re generally still able to use your FSA, HSA, or submit for reimbursement like you would if you came to our offices for an in-person session.

Going from teletherapy to in-person therapy

So far, research studies have shown that people are satisfied with teletherapy sessions. However, when people make a switch from teletherapy to in-person sessions, or the opposite, some clients might find the change stressful or less convenient. This is something that you should discuss with your therapist because you want to feel comfortable and confident in the way that you’re getting therapy.