Psychotherapy, for decades a face to face process, is now becoming an interface to interface process.
Psychotherapists are no more immune to net-fever than the rest of us. Online therapists offer a full range of services — feeling tired for no good reason and wondering if you’re depressed? You can fill in a questionnaire on the web and get a diagnosis. Needing to talk through a problem but a few dollars shy of the 150 bucks a pop the doc is charging to help you over the hump? You can get a consult on-line for as little as twenty dollars.
But how effective is this approach? And how secure are the online confessions patients make in their conversation with their cybershrinks? One noted psychiatrist calls e-therapy disastrous. Another calls it very important. Freud.Com is next.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Dr. Arthur Sullivan, Co-founder and Vice President of Mentalhealthline.com
Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor at MIT and clinical psychologist specializing in people and computers.