How to prepare for on line counselling?

How to prepare for online counselling?

Today, I will be talking about How to prepare for online counselling? My name Is Marcin Bogucki and I am a Psychotherapist in Private Counselling Practice. All information that you find here is from my counselling practice experience and educational material from continued professional development.

In a previous post I was talking about pros and cons of online counselling and psychotherapy. Today I will try to explain how to overcome the fear of remote counselling and how to prepare to feel more confident.

Firstly to let you know, most of us who attend counselling sessions for the first time are stressful and it doesn’t matter if it is one -to -one or video counselling. We have issues to worry about and feel uncomfortable in that situation. However, the psychotherapist is also human and has feelings and a reservoir of understanding.

Your therapist is the last person who will criticise you or judge you in any negative way. The counsellor is working regarding the code of ethics and with a professional attitude and morals. It Doesn’t really matter how we are dressed and the counsellor will not mind at all if you have a blue t-shirt today or green jacket. Also it is not important if we come back from the barber or do we have trimming nails. Also your room design is not an object or any business of your therapist.

However, before we meet our psychotherapist, we need to prepare a bit. The therapist is not a sorcerer or any type of wizard and does not have a glass ball to know everything about us until we tell him. When we are talking about online counselling, we must first of all have a solid Internet connection (I personally had to invest in order to have a good contact with the client), then make sure that there is no one else in the vicinity. Organise the environment so that we feel comfortable with ourselves, avoiding cars, staircases, public places and other situations where bystanders could see or hear what we are talking about.

In the first place, we require that the conversation be confidential, so we must ensure it on our part as well. It is important to take into account that our children and pets can ruin the entire session, but only because neither party will be able to focus on the conversation and conduct the session properly because of the noise in the background. In other words when we are visiting a GP, we also do not take a dog or a kitten in any case, if this happens, I believe that the counsellor will be understanding and so the situation will be discussed in the future, without adding unnecessary stress.

When we have a good internet connection now be sure that the blue-touch if you use one, speaker, microphone and webcam is working properly. On many occasions we can check it before the session starts. Also, you can notice that your therapist has headphones which helps with minimalism and assure you that no one can hear what is being said. Typical online counselling session is encrypted and no one can know what the session is about. A counsellor uses the newest technology to hold confidentiality in high standard.

It looks like simple steps but unnecessary to make a good counselling session and build the therapeutic relationship with trust.

Thank you for listening and see you soon.

Your host Marcin Bogucki on Private Psychotherapy Practice with Remote Counselling.

If you would like to contact me to book an appointment please use the details below.