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Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic

Telepsychotherapy is an increasingly common way of conducting psychotherapy. Previous research has shown that patients usually have positive experiences of online therapy, however, with large individual differences. The aim of this study was to explore patients’ experiences of transition from in-per...

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Autores principales: Werbart, Andrzej, Byléhn, Linda, Jansson, Tuva Maja, Philips, Björn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8988038/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35401368
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.835214
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author Werbart, Andrzej
Byléhn, Linda
Jansson, Tuva Maja
Philips, Björn
author_facet Werbart, Andrzej
Byléhn, Linda
Jansson, Tuva Maja
Philips, Björn
author_sort Werbart, Andrzej
collection PubMed
description Telepsychotherapy is an increasingly common way of conducting psychotherapy. Previous research has shown that patients usually have positive experiences of online therapy, however, with large individual differences. The aim of this study was to explore patients’ experiences of transition from in-person psychotherapy sessions to telepsychotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as variation in the experiences with regard to the patients’ personality orientation. Seven psychotherapy patients in Sweden were interviewed and the transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Additionally, the participants were asked to rate their dissatisfaction/satisfaction with the transition, how hindering/helpful the transition was, and how unsafe/safe they felt after the transition in comparison to before. Personality orientation on relatedness or self-definition was assessed applying a self-assessment instrument (Prototype Matching of Anaclitic-Introjective Personality Configuration; PMAI). The participants experienced telepsychotherapy as qualitatively different from in-person psychotherapy. They reported several essential losses: the rituals surrounding therapy sessions were lost, including the transitional time and space between their every-day life and the therapy sessions, less therapeutic work was done, the therapists could lose their therapeutic stance, the sense of rapport was impaired, and the patients felt less open and emotionally available. On the other hand, some patients could feel freer online. As six of the participants had an anaclitic personality orientation, the present study could especially contribute to the understanding of how patients with strong affiliative needs and fear of abandonment experience the transition to meeting their therapists via communication technology. The participants’ self-ratings showed that they were only marginally dissatisfied with the transition and experienced the transition as slightly hindering, whereas they felt rather safe after the transition, indicating low concordance between qualitative and quantitative evaluations. New studies are needed to explore the introjective patients’ experiences of the transition. An essential topic is also to collect evidence and to test how the impaired sense of rapport when using communication technology can be remedied by adequate, patient-tailored interventions, a topic that has to be included in psychotherapy education and training.
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spelling pubmed-89880382022-04-08 Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic Werbart, Andrzej Byléhn, Linda Jansson, Tuva Maja Philips, Björn Front Psychol Psychology Telepsychotherapy is an increasingly common way of conducting psychotherapy. Previous research has shown that patients usually have positive experiences of online therapy, however, with large individual differences. The aim of this study was to explore patients’ experiences of transition from in-person psychotherapy sessions to telepsychotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as variation in the experiences with regard to the patients’ personality orientation. Seven psychotherapy patients in Sweden were interviewed and the transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Additionally, the participants were asked to rate their dissatisfaction/satisfaction with the transition, how hindering/helpful the transition was, and how unsafe/safe they felt after the transition in comparison to before. Personality orientation on relatedness or self-definition was assessed applying a self-assessment instrument (Prototype Matching of Anaclitic-Introjective Personality Configuration; PMAI). The participants experienced telepsychotherapy as qualitatively different from in-person psychotherapy. They reported several essential losses: the rituals surrounding therapy sessions were lost, including the transitional time and space between their every-day life and the therapy sessions, less therapeutic work was done, the therapists could lose their therapeutic stance, the sense of rapport was impaired, and the patients felt less open and emotionally available. On the other hand, some patients could feel freer online. As six of the participants had an anaclitic personality orientation, the present study could especially contribute to the understanding of how patients with strong affiliative needs and fear of abandonment experience the transition to meeting their therapists via communication technology. The participants’ self-ratings showed that they were only marginally dissatisfied with the transition and experienced the transition as slightly hindering, whereas they felt rather safe after the transition, indicating low concordance between qualitative and quantitative evaluations. New studies are needed to explore the introjective patients’ experiences of the transition. An essential topic is also to collect evidence and to test how the impaired sense of rapport when using communication technology can be remedied by adequate, patient-tailored interventions, a topic that has to be included in psychotherapy education and training. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8988038/ /pubmed/35401368 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.835214 Text en Copyright © 2022 Werbart, Byléhn, Jansson and Philips. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Werbart, Andrzej
Byléhn, Linda
Jansson, Tuva Maja
Philips, Björn
Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Loss of Rituals, Boundaries, and Relationship: Patient Experiences of Transition to Telepsychotherapy Following the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort loss of rituals, boundaries, and relationship: patient experiences of transition to telepsychotherapy following the onset of covid-19 pandemic
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8988038/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35401368
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.835214
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