Psychology Onsite Pty Ltd offers tools and practices for use in online counselling and psychology. The service provides therapy sessions with a psychologist in a secure online environment with synchronous live chat and progressing from there to other formats and technologies.Psychology Onsite, as both a platform and a practice, offers rich research possibilities. This is an emerging medium for health care. The data gained from the development of this site provides ongoing material for investigation and analysis. Psychology Onsite maintains links with senior research partners and clinical advisors to ensure that the treatment provided is of the highest clinical standard and well validated.
Background
Psychology Onsite can enhance mental health delivery to underserved clients. Opportunity exists in providing more flexible and convenient access to psychologists for many with difficulty attending a psychologist’s rooms: those who are time-poor, frequent travelers, those with restricted mobility or unusual work patterns. One group is those in rural and remote communities, where opportunities for face-to-face contact with mental health professionals are often limited.
Rural and regional Australia features the twin characteristics of being under-served in terms of mental health service delivery, while suffering high rates of mental illness. Human services are typically expensive to provide in rural and regional areas due to the cost of setting up infrastructure and of providing trained staff to small numbers of clients. Those who seek help in tight-knit rural communities with their established social norms are sometimes inhibited by embarrassment. In small communities, there is often difficulty when a single mental health care provider has multiple relationships within the community, giving rise to risks of boundary confusion and multiple relationships.
As pointed out in recent APS "Guidelines for managing professional boundaries and multiple relationships record:
4.1.3. Psychologists practicing in a small community, for example rural or ethnic communities
If the psychologist and the client live in the same small community, some multiple relationships cannot be avoided. The psychologist potentially socialises, shops and takes part in community activities with clients, former clients and their families and friends. The psychologist is especially mindful of confidentiality issues and other ethical issues inherent in such situations."
Psychology Onsite can reduce the reliance on a single or few mental health workers in the community thus improving the quality and access to mental health care and support for resident mental health care professionals as well as general practitioners.
Internet technologies provide new opportunities to reach those most in need, via the privacy of their own PC, increase access to quality and specialist mental health services in under-served communities, and improve the efficiency of delivering those services. The efficacy of Internet-based mental-health service delivery is increasingly well documented (Monnier 2003), particularly for approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), psychometric testing, and mental health assessments. Yet there are some important contributions still to be made.
The Psychology Onsite approach can resolve scheduling problems encountered in some client groups. Time-poor, highly mobile urban professionals find it difficult to schedule regular face-to-face sessions due to travel and professional commitments. Mental health services are under-resourced in urban, as well as rural, environments and access to a mental health professional, who is close by and has time available to fit in with busy work schedules, parenting responsibilities or disability, is often difficult.
Online therapy is a flexible alternative.
Online therapy allows more latitude in matching client and practitioner need, scheduling and load.
Who is Psychology Onsite?
Alisa de Torres
Alisa de Torres (BAHons, Grad Dip Psych, Post Grad Dip Psych, MPsych(Counselling), ANZAP, IARPP) is a consultant psychologist and psychotherapist working in private practice in Sydney. She is actively involved with national and international mental health organisations and is on the organising committee for the World Congress of Psychotherapy, which will take place in Sydney in 2011. She is also a committee member of the ANZAP Conference Committee for 2008 and on the executive of the Sydney chapter of the IARPP. Alisa is the Director and creator of Psychology Onsite and its website MyPsych.com.
Clinical Advisory Board
In the interests of providing the highest quality of clinical care, a clinical advisory board has been established consisting of clinicians and academics across the various sectors of mental health.
Current members of the Clinical Board are:
- Dr Carolyn Block. GP - MBBS (Hons), FRACGP, CFF
- John Kearney. Social Worker, Psychotherapist and Psychology student - BWS, MAASW, Dip. Psychotherapy
- Michael MacDonald. Clinical Psychologist - MSc, MA, M Clin Psych (Macq), MAPS
- A/Professor Judy Proudfoot. Senior Research Fellow & Director of eHealth, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales - BEd (Hons), Grad Dip SpEd, MA (Psych), PhD
- Professor Ron Rapee. Macquarie University - BSc (Psychology), MSc (Psychology), PhD
- Alisa de Torres. Consultant Psychologist and Psychotherapist - BAHons, Grad Dip Psych, Post Grad Dip Psych, MPsych (Counselling)
- Dr Tessa Philips. Faculty member USyd M.M.(Psychotherapy) and ANZAP, International Council IAPSP, Board of Directors IARPP, and specialist in online treatment and supervision. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist - MSc (Psychology), MA(Psychology), PhD, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy NSWIPP
What Psychology Onsite offers: Online Therapy Service www.MyPsych.com
The service provides live therapy sessions with a psychologist in a secure online environment. Group therapy sessions and supervision sessions for psychologists will also be provided as an adjunct to this service in the future.
The therapy, as much as possible, resembles face-to-face therapy. The client signs up for sessions with a registered psychologist. Sessions are contained to 50 minutes.
The client and psychologist use an interface designed for secure and emotionally-rich chat session. Emoticons and other online tools will help to assist the communication between the client and therapist.
Who will benefit
People who will benefit from the service may be:
- people in rural and regional areas who do not have access to therapy services
- those who have family or work commitments which prevent them from attending face-to-face
- those in prison, or military personnel posted to remote or international areas
- people who would not normally front up to a therapist, but are comfortable with the online environment
- people with disabilities which make travel to a psychologist’s office difficult or impossible
The website provides information for people in an emergency situation.
How it works
Clients read about what to expect from the service on the site. The registration process takes the client through a step-by-step informed consent, which includes issues surrounding confidentiality and the online environment. A triage questionnaire completed just before a first session allows psychologists to identify and manage emergency cases just as they would in a face-to-face environment and provides diagnostic material for clinicians as well as research data for ongoing study of the site. Clients are required to complete a personal information sheet providing emergency contacts.
After registration, the client can sign up for one or more sessions. They may select therapists of their choice from the profiles on the site. The service provides a secure online pre-payment facility.
Other resources
Users will find a notice board of activities in their area, and online resources, such as articles and blogs about mental health issues. Psychologists have access to clinical journals and research.
The therapists
Therapists are psychologists who hold six-year university qualifications in clinical areas of psychology or, for coaching, in organisational psychology. They use the site to extend their reach to people who have been unable to access therapy before.
Psychologists manage and update a personal live calendar to publish the times they are available for consultations. Clients may search by availability, name or specialisation to select a therapist and book a session. Sessions may be booked a minimum of two hours in advance.
Once registered with MyPsych.com, therapists are able to access a selection of online professional journals and other professional resources available for therapists. The Australian Medicare subsidy is not presently available for online patient therapy. Clients should be advised to contact their private health insurers to determine their eligibility for other payments. The client disclaimer acknowledges issues arising from the online environment and confidentiality. Information about what to do in an emergency will be prominently displayed.
Research areas of interest
Psychology Onsite is an initiative by clinicians to overcome problems of access to psychological and counselling treatment caused by physical location, patient reluctance towards face-to-face treatment, and access to clinicians using an online approach. We believe this approach has broad applications to many areas of clinical practice, and our university sector research partners work with to us investigate its application in several areas. Research studies commence with the launch of the pilot site.
Potential avenues of research include:
- Treating depression, with particular emphasis on co-morbidities including anxiety and chronic physical illness, and substance abuse
- Drug and alcohol therapy
- Online group therapy
- Exploration of how online therapy fits into the complete spectrum of treatment modalities
- Mental health service delivery to rural and remote communities
Our prestigious clinical board has been an integral part of creating a premium-quality mental health care service. All efforts have been made to ensure that this is a service that adheres to the highest clinical standards, and our site has been developed to create a stimulating work environment.
Training will be available to help therapists adapt to the online environment. Once registered as a consultant with MyPsych.com, therapists will be able to access a selection of online journals, and other professional resources.