Online Therapy Vs Face To Face Therapy

Online therapy, also called “e-therapy” or “web-based” psychotherapy, is a growing branch in the field of clinical psychology and counseling. Many studies are being administered, analyzed and compared to examine the effectiveness of this new form of intervention. Ranging from the use of therapist-conducted Internet Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) to guided self-help treatment, many studies show a significant effectiveness in online therapy. Many variables come into consideration when conducting research on such a broad topic, such as the type of approach, the mental illnesses being treated, and the costs applied. In the present paper, the role of internet-based intervention is investigated. It is hypothesized that online intervention leads

The following five article reviews attempt to demonstrate and support this hypothesis.

Preceding the review of the research articles and their findings, it is necessary to list the advantages and primary goals of online-based therapy. According to a journal by Rochlen et al. (2004), it is highly accessible which serves a benefit for individuals with limited time and limited mobility. Furthermore, it has been shown to be very cost-effective, with most of the web-based treatments and guided self-help modules at a low price. Nowadays, multimedia and hypertextuality play a very important role in society, which appear to be dominant and dynamic factors in communication. Lastly, it is convenient for individuals who have a hard time expressing themselves correctly and efficiently, due to

A 6 months follow-up was administered, using a second BDI completion. Before proceeding to the results, it is essential to discuss a second research study that used similar intervention methods and outcome measures. The latter is a study conducted by Wagner et al., (2014) whose aim was to compare treatment outcomes of an internet-based intervention with a face-to-face intervention for depression in a randomized non-inferiority trial. A total of 62 participants suffering from depression were randomly assigned in either the therapist-supported internet-based intervention group, or in the face-to-face intervention. With an intervention of 8 weeks of cognitive-behavioral therapy principles, patients in both groups received the same treatment modules. Moreover, the primary outcome measure was the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II); similarly to the first study, and secondary outcome variables were suicidal ideation, anxiety, hopelessness and automatic thoughts. In both cited studies, the results were highly significant. In the first one, email-based CBT significantly reduced