Telepsychology, Telehealth, & Internet-Based Therapy

From Ken Pope's site

I gathered the following resources to help therapists, counselors, and other clinicians to keep abreast of the rapidly evolving professional guidelines, research, treatments, innovations, and practices in the areas of telepsychology, telehealth, internet-based therapy.

I've divided the resources into 3 sections:

1) Links to 24 sets of professional guidelines that focus on telepsychology, online counseling, internet-based therapy, etc.

2) Citations for 51 recent (i.e., published in 2013-2015) articles

3) State Psychology Board Telepsychology Laws, Regulations, Policies, & Opinions--This third section was generously compiled by psychologist Kenneth R. Drude, and I am indebted to him for his kind offer to post it here.

The resource page is here.

I will link it in the Guides and Guidelines section of this site.

The Use of Telepsychology in Clinical Practice: Benefits, Effectiveness, and Issues to Consider

By Nicole Godine and Jeffrey Barnett
International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning
DOI: 10.4018/ijcbpl.2013100105

Abstract

The use of various technologies in the practice of psychology has increased greatly in recent years in concert with increases in the use of these technologies in the lives of most individuals. E-mail, text messaging, chat rooms, and the Internet have greatly changed how many individuals communicate and maintain relationships. The psychotherapy relationship is no exception. The scope and practice of telepsychology, the use of the Internet and other technologies in the provision of psychological services, is reviewed along with relevant research that supports their use in the treatment of a wide range of conditions and disorders. Clinical, ethical, and legal issues and challenges are addressed and recommendations for the effective and appropriate use of these technologies in psychological practice are provided.

Article Preview

Mental health services can be delivered by e-mail, real-time chat, telephones, videoconferencing, cell phones, and websites (Grohol, 2003; Smith & Allison, 1998; Stamm, 2003; VandenBos & Williams, 2000). Synchronous modalities of communication, in which participants communicate in real time, include online chat, telephones, cell phones, and videoconferencing. Videoconferencing is a “technological procedure that allows individuals to see and hear each other on a computer monitor or video screen in real time” (Germain, Marchand, Bouchard, Drouin, & Guay, 2009, p. 42). It is different from real-time chat, telephone conversations, and cell phone conversations in that videoconferencing allows users to view and speak to each other in real time, whereas chat, telephones, and cell phones only allow the users to speak to each other (not view each other) in real time. Asynchronous forms of communication, in which there is a delayed response time, include e-mail, websites (which might be simply informational, or might offer contact with a mental health professional through e-mail), and text messaging via cell phones.

The entire article is here, behind a paywall.

Scientists, Practitioners Don't See Eye to Eye On Repressed Memory

Science Daily
Originally published December 13, 2013

Skepticism about repressed traumatic memories has increased over time, but new research shows that psychology researchers and practitioners still tend to hold different beliefs about whether such memories occur and whether they can be accurately retrieved.

The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Whether repressed memories are accurate or not, and whether they should be pursued by therapists, or not, is probably the single most practically important topic in clinical psychology since the days of Freud and the hypnotists who came before him," says researcher Lawrence Patihis of the University of California, Irvine.

According to Patihis, the new findings suggest that there remains a "serious split in the field of psychology in beliefs about how memory works."

The entire article is here.

Bamboozled by Bad Science

The first myth about "evidence-based" therapy

Published on October 31, 2013 by Jonathan Shedler, PhD in Psychologically Minded

Media coverage of psychotherapy often advises people to seek "evidence-based therapy."
Few outside the mental health professions realize the term “evidence-based therapy” is a form of branding. It refers to therapies conducted by following instruction manuals, originally developed to create standardized treatments for research trials. These "manualized" therapies are typically brief, highly structured, and almost exclusively identified with cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT.

Academic researchers routinely extoll the “evidence-based” therapies studied in research laboratories and denigrate psychotherapy as it is actually practiced by most clinicians in the real world. Their comments range from the hysteric (“The disconnect between what clinicians do and what science has discovered is an unconscionable embarrassment.”–Professor Walter Mischel, quoted in Newsweek) to the seemingly cautious and sober (“Evidence-based therapies work a little faster, a little better, and for more problematic situations, more powerfully.”–Professor Steven Hollon, quoted in the Los Angeles Times).

The entire blog post is here.

Psychotherapy’s Image Problem

By BRANDON A. GAUDIANO
The New York Times- Op Ed
Published: September 29, 2013

PSYCHOTHERAPY is in decline. In the United States, from 1998 to 2007, the number of patients in outpatient mental health facilities receiving psychotherapy alone fell by 34 percent, while the number receiving medication alone increased by 23 percent.

This is not necessarily for a lack of interest. A recent analysis of 33 studies found that patients expressed a three-times-greater preference for psychotherapy over medications.

The entire story is here

The Contribution of the Quality of Therapists' Personal Lives to the Development of the Working Alliance

By Helene A. Nissen-Lie, Odd E. Havik, Per A. Hoglend, Jon T. Monsen, and Michael Helge Ronnestad

Journal of Counseling Psychology. 2013 Aug 19

Abstract

Research suggests that the person of the psychotherapist is important for the process and outcome of psychotherapy, but little is known about the relationship between therapists' personal experiences and the quality of their therapeutic work. This study investigates 2 factors (Personal Satisfactions and Personal Burdens) reflecting therapists' quality of life that emerged from the self-reports of a large international sample of psychotherapists (N = 4,828) (Orlinsky & Rønnestad, 2004, 2005) using the Quality of Personal Life scales of the Development of Psychotherapists Common Core Questionnaire (Orlinsky et al., 1999). These factors were investigated as predictors of alliance levels and growth (using the Working Alliance Inventory) rated by both patients and therapists in a large (227 patients and 70 therapists) naturalistic outpatient psychotherapy study (Havik et al., 1995). The Personal Burdens scale was strongly and inversely related to the growth of the alliance as rated by the patients, but was unrelated to therapist-rated alliance. Conversely, the factor scale of therapists' Personal Satisfactions was clearly and positively associated with therapist-rated alliance growth, but was unrelated to the patients' ratings of the alliance. The findings suggest that the working alliance is influenced by therapists' quality of life, but in divergent ways when rated by patients or by therapists. It seems that patients are particularly sensitive to their therapists' private life experience of distress, which presumably is communicated through the therapists' in-session behaviors, whereas the therapists' judgments of alliance quality were positively biased by their own sense of personal well-being.

Introduction

The notion that the psychotherapist as an individual is important for psychotherapeutic outcomes stems in part from the well-known and frequently cited finding of meta-analyses that therapy outcome appears to be less related to the use of different therapy methods associated with established schools of therapy, and significantly related to differences between the individual psychotherapists providing the therapy (Benish, Imel, & Wampold, 2008; Blatt, Zuroff, Quinlan, & Pilkonis, 1996; Huppert et al., 2001; Kim, Wampold, & Bolt, 2006). Moreover, in efforts to identify the characteristics in therapists that promote treatment success or failure, the studies to date suggest that experience level, type of training, theoretical orientation, and so forth have limited value in distinguishing between more or less successful therapists (Beutler et al., 2004; Dunkle & Friedlander, 1996; Sandell et al., 2007; Skovholt & Jennings, 2004; Strupp & Hadley, 1977). Instead, therapists' interpersonal qualities appear to be more relevant, such as their facilitative interpersonal skills (Anderson, Ogles, Pattersen, Lambert, & Vermeersch, 2009); their ability to be affirmative, responsive, and empathic (Bohart, Elliott, Greenberg, & Watson, 2002; Najavits & Strupp, 1994); their ability to resist counteraggression when confronted with devaluation and rejections by patients (von der Lippe, Monsen, Ronnestad, & Eilertsen, 2008); and their interpersonal functioning in their personal lives (Dunkle & Friedlander, 1996; Hersoug, Hoglend, Havik, von der Lippe, & Monsen, 2009b). Hence, although therapists are professional helpers, it may be that their personal characteristics are more important than their professional qualifications in determining their therapeutic capabilities. This suggestion echoes the statements of Rosenzweig (1936), Strupp (1958), and Rogers (1957, 1961), who emphasized that studying the personal characteristics of psychotherapists is necessary in order to understand patient development in psychotherapy.

The entire article is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.

Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay 'Cure' Is Renounced

By Erik Eckholm
The New York Times
Originally published on July 7, 2012

Here are some exerpts:

Alan Chambers, 40, the president, declared that there was no cure for homosexuality and that “reparative therapy” offered false hopes to gays and could even be harmful. His statements have led to charges of heresy and a growing schism within the network.
      

“For the last 37 years, Exodus has been a bright light, arguably the brightest one for those with same-sex attraction seeking an authentically Christian hope,” said Andrew Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries, based in Kansas City, Mo., one of 11 ministries that defected. His group left Exodus in May, Mr. Comiskey said in an e-mail, “due to leader Alan Chambers’s appeasement of practicing homosexuals who claim to be Christian” as well as his questioning of the reality of “sexual orientation change.”

(cut)

“I believe that any sexual expression outside of heterosexual, monogamous marriage is sinful according to the Bible,” Mr. Chambers emphasized. “But we’ve been asking people with same-sex attractions to overcome something in a way that we don’t ask of anyone else,” he said, noting that Christians with other sins, whether heterosexual lust, pornography, pride or gluttony, do not receive the same blanket condemnations.

(cut)

Mr. Pickup, an officer of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, composed of like-minded therapists, said reparative therapy had achieved profound changes for thousands of people, including himself. The therapy, he said, had helped him confront emotional wounds and “my homosexual feelings began to dissipate and attractions for women grew.”

      

Some in the ex-gay world are more scathing about Mr. Chambers.

The entire story is here.

Christian Group Backs Away from Ex-Gay Therapy

By Patrick Condon
The Associated Press
Originally published June 26, 2012

Alan Chambers

The president of the country's best-known Christian ministry dedicated to helping people repress same-sex attraction through prayer is trying to distance the group from the idea that gay people's sexual orientation can be permanently changed or "cured."

That's a significant shift for Exodus International, the 36-year-old Orlando-based group that boasts 260 member ministries around the U.S. and world. For decades, it has offered to help conflicted Christians rid themselves of unwanted homosexual inclinations through counseling and prayer, infuriating gay rights activists in the process.

This week, 600 Exodus ministers and followers are gathering for the group's annual conference, held this year in a Minneapolis suburb. The group's president, Alan Chambers, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the conference would highlight his efforts to dissociate the group from the controversial practice usually called ex-gay, reparative or conversion therapy.

The entire story is here.

Jonathan Alpert's Mis-Statements, And Possible Misconduct

By Todd Essig
Forbes: Leadership
Originally published April 23, 2012

An intentionally provocative opinion piece about psychotherapy was just published in the NY Times by Jonathan Alpert. Well, it worked. I’ve been provoked. Alpert is an apparently proud fellow who uses his web-site to trumpet being called “Manhattan’s most media-friendly psychotherapist.” In the article he lays claim to a style of psychotherapy that is a unique advance because unlike others he actually helps patients change. Other people, people like me, what we do is waste our patients lives so we can get paid. According to him relaxing “spa appointments” rather than anything useful are what people get from me and my kind.

How did this get past the Times editors? It is so clearly designed as an infomercial for selling the author’s go-for-the-gusto change-your-life in 28 days book. Plus the article is dangerous. It perpetuates the myth that psychotherapy is inefficient, ineffective snake oil, relaxing to be sure but snake oil nonetheless. In so doing it erects an unnecessary conceptual obstacle to getting help that someone might need.

The entire response to Mr. Alpert's article is here.

Thanks to Richard Ievoli for this article.  He could have been a contender.