Given the widespread adoption of telehealth services, such as therapy conducted by Zoom, getting help for mental health problems has changed substantially since mid-March. At the DBT Centre, we always thought it would be nice to establish a telehealth program, but we were so busy with our regular programs that we didn’t have time to sit down and work out the details. Then, all of a sudden, we had to begin telehealth in order to ensure that our clients continue to receive high quality assessment and treatment. Although there’s not much research on the use of telehealth to provide DBT services, there’s lots of research on telehealth therapy more broadly, and the findings are very encouraging. There’s really no reason to think that telehealth is any less effective than in person therapy. Also, encouragingly, we have found that our clients generally seem to be doing quite well with group services conducted by Zoom.
In fact, we were just having a discussion the other day about how session attendance has gone up. Fewer people seem to be cancelling or missing their sessions. This, of course, makes good sense. It’s a lot easier to attend your therapy session if you don’t have to commute a long distance by car or transit, and even if you’re feeling a little under the weather, it’s probably easier to attend your therapy session in front of your computer than it would be try to drag yourself to an in person session.
All of this makes me think about the various reasons people might still miss their Zoom therapy sessions, particularly as most of us are not really going anywhere these days other than the grocery store. I came up with several. This list is by no means exhaustive, and it’s in no particular order.
Top 10 Reasons to Miss Your Zoom Therapy Session
- I was in a Zoom therapy session with a better therapist.
- I was in the bathroom, and I miscalculated how long it would take.
- I was in the living room.
- I forgot my log-in information for my computer.
- My dog ate my computer.
- My Wi-Fi went out.
- I stubbed my toe walking to my home office.
- The rest of my family had Zoom therapy sessions at the same time, and there was no bandwidth left for mine.
- I experienced temporary amnesia, showed up in person, and nobody was there.
- I lost my mask.
Bonus reason:
- What is Zoom again?
~ Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.