Kate Anthony

OTI Europe Ltd | Consultancy, Personal Training and Research for Online Therapeutic Services

   
  • Home
  • About
    • CV
  • Speaker
  • Consult/Supervision
  • Online Therapy Training
  • CPD Specials
  • Coach Courses
  • Work with Young People?
  • COVID 19 Telehealth course
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Work with DV?

Happy Birthday Online Therapy – 20 years old!

September 7, 2015 by Kate Anthony

20

During one of my infrequent bouts of insomnia last night, it occurred to me that in 2015 we ought to be celebrating the 20th birthday of online counselling and therapy.  It now also occurs to me that thinking about such things at 3am is a bit odd, but then those who know me know that the practice and ethics of online work is the thing that keeps me awake at night, so I’ll choose the word passionate rather than odd…

Anyway, as outlined in my 2010 book Online Therapy: A Practical Guide, co-authored with the lovely DeeAnna Nagel (now of Havana Wellness – check it out!), it’s established that the first paid-for online mental health services started appearing in mid-1995, led by pioneers such as Leonard Holmes, John Suler, David Sommers  and of course, John Grohol of PsychCentral.  There’s a timeline here up to 2002 from the old Metanoia.org site, one of the first websites I came across when starting to look into the emerging field in 1998.

20 years old in 2015 – that means the field is almost an adult!  So I am constantly surprised when it is referred to as “new” – it may be young and dashing, but at 20 years old, it’s not exactly new anymore!

In fact, it also now occurs to me that my training programmes first emerged in a face-to-face capacity in 2000, so the sub-field of training for online services is already a teenager (read my recent BJGC paper about that here)! And let’s not forget Supervision and Coaching also taking place online!

So I was pleased to be invited to Switzerland next year to speak at a conference being offered by the University of Basel. The conference theme is “Typing Yourself Healthy…”, and I was reflecting how nice it is to see the original online therapy modality being aired – a part of online therapy which remains robust despite the great technological developments we have seen over the years, particularly with video now being a reliable method of communication with clients (this wasn’t the case back in 1995, trust me!).  Even if you picture “online therapy” as “video therapy”, I’m pretty sure that there is a lot of text-based work involved. And if you have joined the excellent free-to-sign-up platform PlusGuidance, you’ll know that text-based work is very much a part of the communication tools you can use with clients.

So, apart from making me feel very old, what can we take from the history of online therapy? Our 20-year old is maturing, no doubt – BACP will shortly publish new Good Practice Guidance for working with both text and audio/video – the latest set of ethical advice from a professional organisation that first looked at the area back in the late 90’s, and first published guidelines in 2001.  The number of doctoral-level studies in the field has increased since my own was awarded back in 2010, and I see many on the horizon as trainees with the Online Therapy Institute find their own burning research topics as a result of their studies.  The media is less shocked by the concept of using the World Wide Web for mental health support, although they still love a story about it going pear-shaped (and always will, I suspect).  Even using avatars and virtual environments for therapy doesn’t raise too many eyebrows these days.

So join me in lighting a candle for the 20th anniversary of online practice going live! It’s been a thrilling (and sometimes frustrating) journey to adulthood, as the Internet became an everyday part of our lives and more and more clients reached out through their personal devices rather than calling their medical practice.  Having an online element to your practice shouldn’t be intimidating – the pioneers of the field have had your back for ages – so maybe it’s time to reach back out to the clients who are trying to find you online!

Our new Resource Guides!

February 24, 2015 by Kate Anthony

DeeAnna and I took a bit of a leap this week after a brainstorming session!  As we’ve blogged over at Online Therapy Institute, we get a lot of emails from people worldwide who  haven’t got the time right now or the funds to take that all important CPD training, yet do have a burning question they need an answer to as they think about developing their online services.  Or perhaps the idea of offering a blended service of using their traditional skills and newer technological tools is just a faint idea, and they need to have the pertinent information within their grasp in order to make an informed decision about going down that road before committing to it.e learning

So we wanted to do something new to meet those needs!

Those of you who are aware of our work at the Institute know that it is our mission to ensure as many practitioners are armed with what we know about working online before embarking upon doing so with those often vulnerable clients.  One of my prouder moments was a graduate of mine who was able to say to me after investing in training that it was the best money she ever spent, as it told her that she was totally unsuited to the work and was so glad to have found that out beforehand.  This is something we trainers should pay more attention to, I feel – knowing that sometimes when a training doesn’t work out for an individual, it isn’t a failure on our part or theirs – simply that not all tools and methods are suited to everybody.  I remember during my core training being told I should sit with my wrist upwards and exposed as this indicated openness to the client.  I just felt I was offering up my wrists to be slit, and the congruent me quickly abandoned that nugget of expert advice…

So we asked ourselves “how can we reach more people unprepared for using their skills in a digital environment, but who don’t want a full credential or can’t find the time and money to invest in this field as part of their continuing professional development? We can’t give it away – we’re not a charity, a library or a government entity. But we do have a mission that has been burning within us for well over 15 years now to help counsellors and coaches keep skills up to date in light of technological development and the changes in society that the Internet has brought, and TILT Magazine can only go part of the way in doing that.”

(To be honest, the discussion wasn’t as neatly put as that, and I may be paraphrasing somewhat…)

Anyway, what we have come up with is consolidating the knowledge and expertise we offer through our introductory courses into neat little resource guides!  If you choose these, you’ll still be part of our community at our forum and Facebook groups for co-learning with our current and past students – and as an added bonus, if you decide that the time is right for you to take the course itself and be fully mentored by me or DeeAnna as you learn, you can simply upgrade! Woot!  All this for under 50 quid!

🙂

Courses offered as both a credential and a resource guide: 

Certified Cyber Therapist

Certified Cyber Coach

Certified Aroma Coach

Certified Intuitive Practitioner

Ten New Research Papers on Online Practice Published – woot!

January 22, 2015 by Kate Anthony

I love peer-reviewed special symposia – it’s a great way of accessing the most up-to-date research and cutting-edge thinking without having to wait for a whole edited textbook to be published (and trust me on that – I have two in production right now!).

And of course I am pleased to be published in the British Journal for Guidance and Counselling amongst suBJGCch esteemed authors and researchers, with not only a paper on the importance (and trials and tribulations) of training practitioners to be awesome online practitioners, but also my book review of an important addition to our libraries – Psychoanalysis Online.

Whatever your chosen niche in whatever your chosen field –career guidance, counselling and therapy, coaching, support – you are going to find something in here.  The value of single-session email is covered, and also therapeutic intervention by instant messaging.  There’s also a paper on perceived competencies for social media, and I also am glad to hear the progress of innovative use of technology in career guidance.

Access the articles here (fees apply for some)!

As Deidre Hughes, co-editor of the symposia series, states: “This make an important contribution to research and practice issues related to the application (or otherwise) of technologies in the fields of guidance and counselling.”

Here’s Deidre’s overview of the academic contributions:

  • Goss, S. & Hooley, T. Symposium on online practice
  • Bimrose, J., Kettunen, J.,  & Goddard, T. ICT the new frontier?
  • Bright, J. If you go down to the woods today you are in for a big surprise: seeing the wood for the tress in online delivery of career guidance
  • Anthony, K. Training therapists to work effectively online and offline within digital culture
  • Kettunen, J., Sampson, J., & Vuorinen, R. Career practitioners’ conceptions of competency for social media in career services
  • Richards, P. & Simpson, S. Beyond the therapeutic hour: an exploratory pilot study of using technology to enhance alliance and engagement within face-to-face psychotherapy
  • Gillat, I & Reshef, E. The perceived helpfulness of rendering emotional first aid via email
  • Buffini, K.B. & Gordon, M. One-to-one support for crisis intervention using online synchronous instant messaging
  • Rodda, S.N., Lubman, D.T., Cheetham, A., & Dowling, N.A. Single session web-based counselling
  • Nieuwboer, C.C., Fukkink, R.G.,  & Hermanns, J.M.A. Single session email consultation for parents
  • Haxell, A. J. On becoming textually active at Youthline, New Zealand
  • Lekka, F., Efstathiou, G. & Kalantzi-Azizi, A.K. The effect of counselling-based training on online peer support

Enjoy the articles – and if you have a research paper that you think BJGC would be interested in publishing, you can contact the co-editor Dr Stephen Goss at stephenpgoss@gmail.com!

 

Coaching in the Digital Age

October 24, 2014 by Kate Anthony

Sometimes I feel I neglect the coaching part of me! 

OTI_CertifiedCyberCoach_Cover_v1_001

It’s true that the majority of my work tends towards the counselling and therapy side: but am also a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and an IAC Masteries™ Practitioner; maintain strong links with the Coaching Division of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy as their LinkedIn membership officer and Specialist Advisor for Online Coaching; and am also a member of the Association for Coaching (AC) with the UK Chair of the organisation, Gladeana, being on our Faculty. The Online Coach Institute is also an International Association of Coaching (IAC) Coaching Masteries™ Authorized Licensee (having adapted them to online work), and DeeAnna and I are both on the Faculty of the excellent Institute for Life Coach Training (ILCT).

I’ve had cause to remember all this during this week because I’ve been working on our new credential – the Certified Cyber Coach course (CCC).  We have offered Online Coaching training as a Specialist Certificate for a while now, but it seemed to me while talking with my coaching colleagues that there is a need for a shorter course that simply introduces you to what is available within the realms of technology to enhance your work, alongside giving you the core information as to how to embrace electronic communication with clients and how to avoid the pitfalls that may lurk in doing so.

So I have built a hybrid course!  Less intense than our Specialist Certificate of 30 hours, but bigger than our basic Introduction to Online Coaching course (which offers 5 hours of learning).

By modelling the course on our popular Certified Cyber Therapist course structure of 15 hours, I’ve been able to include much more than the essentials of online behaviour, ethical considerations, and practicalities of using email, chat, telephone/audio and video with clients.  I’ve included the importance of having a Coaching Strategy for using technology in your work, information on Apps to both to manage practice and for your clients, and the exciting world of how Vision Boards look these days using technology!  I’ve added in valuable learning in taking up online methods for creative writing and the potential of a virtual coaching practice in a 3D environment.  To top all that off, it includes resources to help you plan and blend technological offerings into a rounded coaching practice ready for the client living and working in the digital age.

And, just for fun, the final lesson looks at the benefits that other coaches have found by taking their practice online, losing the daily commute and working more flexibly, and invite you to envision how your future practice will look when your clients are only a click away.

Don’t forget – each person taking the CCC will gain one-to-one mentoring from me to ensure your learning fits your individual needs as a coaching practitioner, whatever field of coaching you are in (including therapist as coach!).

Personally, I can’t wait to get started!  Email me if you fancy a chat about it, or head over the Coaching Courses page to see more!

🙂

Next Page »

Lost?

Are you looking for counselling?...
Online or Offline

If you are in immediate distress or you feel suicidal and are in the UK then please visit the Samaritans.

In other countries, please contact Befrienders International.

Connect with Kate

Tweets

Tweets by @KateAnthony
© 2020 Online Therapy Institute Europe Ltd