Accessibility, Convenience, and Burnout: Connecting to Therapy During the Pandemic | Arts & Culture

Sophomore Elias Roessler is no stranger to counseling, having been in and out of therapy since he was 9 years old. Yet there is a key difference between Roessler’s past and present experiences – he has never met his current therapist in person.

“I first started virtual therapy about two or three months ago,” Roessler said. “Overall, I really, really enjoy it.”

Roessler is not alone. In one American Psychological Association survey as of October 2021, 96% of psychologists said they offered virtual sessions to some degree in 2021, including 46% that were exclusively virtual, compared to only 1% before the pandemic. While phone sessions were initially the most popular means of virtual therapy, psychologists have increasingly turned to video conferencing platforms like Zoom or SimplePractice, securing privacy while ensuring face-to-face contact.

University Counseling Services offered virtually no remote services before the pandemic and had to make an abrupt transition. UCS Deputy Director Mariko Lin said counseling staff feared losing the therapeutic relationships with their clients that they had developed in person.

“It was about maintaining our services while maintaining a sense of privacy and privacy,” Lin said. “A lot of us, myself included, were very concerned about, ‘Is this going to be as effective as working in person?'”

Accessibility has been a major barrier to virtual therapy. Many customers and students do not have a confidential space to talk about their problems without being overheard, while others do not have access to secure Internet service.

“I had online dates with students in their cars or in the park,” Lin said. “Where they’re trying to find that place where no one else will hear about their concerns.”

To combat this problem, UCS now offers rooms that students can book virtual therapy appointments with an on-campus or off-campus therapist, which she says have been well utilized so far.

Nonetheless, virtual therapy has proven beneficial to many clients and therapists, some of whom appreciate the convenience of in-home counseling.

“As someone who is anxious to be on time and have somewhere I need to go, just going and logging in from my computer really helps me,” Roessler said. “In high school, I had to take two or three hours out of my day to go to therapy and come back, and I always had to catch up on what I missed.”

Roessler’s counselor is also based in Portland, allowing him to maintain a therapeutic relationship with Eugene that he otherwise could not.

For Lin and other counseling staff at OU, virtual therapy hasn’t significantly limited therapists’ ability to work with their clients.

“For me, it’s just as effective,” Lin said. “And it hasn’t had a significant impact on relationships with clients, at least not on the decrease in symptoms that we see when dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma… whatever comes up. .”

Lin also said his customer footfall has increased since the pandemic began, likely due to the reduced hassle of using Zoom from home.

However, that doesn’t mean the pandemic hasn’t taken a toll on patients and counsellors. In 2021, 68% of consulting firms reported longer wait lists than before the pandemic, and many therapists are feeling the strain on their virtual schedules.

“We all know what kind of impact the pandemic has had on everyone’s mental health, and that applies to therapists as well,” Lin said. “I imagine we’re all more mentally drained than we were at the start of the pandemic because we did it over Zoom.”

Likewise, college counseling services across the country are understaffed in the face of growing student demand, and OU is no exception. Lin said that while UCS typically closes its waitlists when “there is no chance that students will be seen before the end of term,” the window has narrowed. Before the pandemic, waiting lists usually closed at the end of the sixth week; this last fall term, they closed for the fourth week.

Despite these trends, counseling services are more important than ever, virtual or in-person, and Lin encourages all students and potential clients to seek help when needed. She is proud that UCS is still able to arrange one-week clinical consultations for students, despite the increased demand.

When asked if she would ever be comfortable returning to in-person services, Lin was optimistic. “I hope we can get to a place where we can safely meet customers in person again, because it strengthens that bond for me,” she said. “In the meantime, I feel like meaningful work is being done virtually even so.”

Roessler isn’t sure they would consider returning. “The stress of a new environment, the stress of showing up on time and planning your whole day around therapy, is really anxiety-inducing,” Roessler said. “I don’t think I would put myself through all of this when I could just log in immediately and still be home.”