What happens during video-call online counseling? How is Online Counselling different from face to face counselling? Is it as effective?
Counselling is a purposeful process in which you and your counsellor collaborate together to enable you to deal or cope with difficult life situations, significant changes, loss etc more effectively.
In face to face – in person – counselling, you and your counsellor are in the same location, same room at the counsellors work location, in a private and safe setting to openly discuss and progress towards your goals. Despite the fact that this is arguably the most effective and preferred method of counseling, which is why we recommend it, there are also some obstacles. – You might be in a location from where in person access to the counsellor may be difficult. You may reside in a location from where travelling to the counsellors work location might prove to be tough.
– Alternatively, you might be in a situation in which traveling is not recommended due to any health issues. – Clients who reside in other cities, but would want to have access to trained and qualified counsellors, which might not be available and reach out to us for counselling
– Clients abroad, who would like to avail our counselling services
The process of counselling is the same as face to face counselling, where you can feel comfortable talking openly with your counsellor, where you are accepted without any kind of judgement by the counsellor, confidentiality is maintained etc, except that you and your counsellor are on a video call in real time.
When choosing online counseling over video calls, what factors should you take into consideration? You would need to ensure that you have good internet broadband connection, access to a private location from where you can talk comfortably on the video call with the counsellor. Ensure that the place is safe, private and not noisy. For the call, have headphones and a microphone. You would need to set up a good web cam, have a good camera phone, install a video calling app like Skype (that you and your counselor have agreed to use), and create an ID for yourself accordingly. What kinds of technical issues might arise? There could be internet related difficulties like low quality connection or power failure once in a while. You can make alternate arrangements with the counsellor regarding the same.
For video calls, applications like Skype claim to be secure and encrypted. We are not responsible for any security issues in the tool being used / malware etc.
