[Cynefrid]

My beloved psychologist and I are separated since I had to move abroad. She decided against Skype since it's better for me to meet someone in person, but I strongly disagree and want her.
This sucks.
Either way I want to hear if I'm missing out on something valuable or the online method is too limited for long term psychodynamic treatment.

[Leah123]

More and more practicioners are doing online long-term psychodynamic therapy. Dr. Joseph Burgo's a big proponent and I really respect his work, there are many others as well.

http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/

I did a few years of face to face therapy in my teens, with mixed results depending upon the fit between us, and their individual competencies.

Now, 20 years later, I'm 1.5 years into a course of therapy that with a long-distance therapist who I specially selected. We meet online, do chat or email sessions, and phone sessions. I've found it highly effective. I believe the relationship, not the proximity, is most important, as long as the individual is well qualified and experienced, and those are things you already know and are comfortable with as you've already been seeing your psych in person.

Of course, with online therapy, there's no touch. That matters more to some than others, but the psychologist can still see facial expressions with Skype which is significant, and even with phone/voice/text only I've felt attuned with and comfortable with my therapist being able to understand enough, but I am mindful of describing things to her she can't see, such as my body language, etc.

My t has been in another country for three years because of a family problem and we use skype to talk quite frequently. Usually we talk on the phone but sometimes i just need to SEE her. So whenever she is able to we get on skype. Its definitely better than nothing. We do get frustrating with the frequent dropped calls and have to keep calling each other back. But skype is a blessing because otherwise it would just be expensive telephone calls. So i am grateful we have it.

My t moved to another state gosh a year and 8 months ago and we have been doing phone sessions ever since. Before she moved, we talked about using Skype but she's not too techie so we've never actually tried it. She still has her cell phone with my local area code so that's what I call her on, so there's no long distance charges. It's working really well for me!! I was concerned at first that our connection wouldn't translate over the phone, but it did, I need not have worried about that. I don't need to "see" her to feel connected. On occasion when I'm doing my inner work between sessions, I do pull up her online profile picture just to get my head in the "therapy work" space. At this point, we have done phone sessions longer than I saw her in person! And it continues to work very well for me.

[rothfan6]

It works well for me. It's helped me a lot. I've been using Skype or email with my t for almost a year now. I've never gone to therapy face to face but I don't feel like I'm missing anything.