Internet Counseling, Valuable or Harmful?

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Recommended: Confidentiality in counseling

Internet counseling, is it a good tool for conducting counseling? Or is it a risky tool to use for counseling? Overall, I think that some types of Internet counseling could be very effective. However, I do feel that some aspects are not without concern. I will take this opportunity to address some of the main caners that I have with Internet based career counseling. As well, I will address some of the benefits of Internet based counseling in general.
The primary concern that comes to mind is that of confidentiality. Confidentiality is a hard cornerstone to uphold even during the course of normal face-to-face counseling. I can just imagine the challenges that are added when counseling is done in a mediated fashion. I think that counseling that is done via email has the potential to be very risky. When a counselor is assisting a client via email it is a realistic concerns that someone beside the client will be reading the communication. In terms of career counseling, I can see an issue if the client is communicating on work equipment. The counseling information can be seen by the company, which could cause potential issues for the client. If the clients is seeking a career change or is seeking assistance for handling a difficult workplace situation the employer who may see the email could raise concerns to the employee. In turn, this could lead to a volatile situation for the client. According to Wells, et all, during a recent research endeavor that had conducted indicated that twenty-six of these professionals shared that, if they provided online mental health treatment, they would be concerned about maintaining secure information online and complying with existing confidentiality mandates (2007, p. 457).
A second c...

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...he client’s demeanor. To help combat this issues strong verbal and questioning skills are needed to make sound clinical judgments. As the counseling profession grows and integrates the helping professional will need to adapt like I had done with the phone counseling. Without question, I can see tools like Skype, face time, and evolving chat technology could bridging the concerns that professionals have with technological based counseling models. Lastly, in my opinion, these emerging technologies are vital to providing resources for career development, mental health counseling, and to resource support to individuals that otherwise may not have these tools available.

References
Wells, M., Mitchell, K., Finkelhor, D., & Becker-Blease, K. (2007). Online mental health treatment: Concerns and considerations. CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 10(3), 453-459.

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