Text, email counselling safe if supervised

Text, email counselling not dangerous if well supervised, says Counselling Outcomes Researcher

The advent of text and email counselling within what is now an embedded social networking societal environment is not dangerous if the process is well supervised, says a Counsellor and Counselling Outcomes Researcher.

Steve Taylor, Director of 24-7 Ltd, a private practice Counselling agency located in Greenlane, Auckland www.24-7.org.nz was responding to a comment by the Ethics Convenor of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors Sue Webb, in Ms Webb’s response to the recent Health & Disability Case against a Counsellor who gave medical advice to a client via a text message not to take their medication. The client committed suicide shortly after.

“Ms Webb has stated that text counselling is "dangerous practice", and while it is true that the Counsellor in the HDC finding had no business offering such advice to the client, the use of both email and text as Counselling tools is now very common in New Zealand, and not something to be feared” said Mr Taylor.

For example, the Youthline Counselling agency in Wellington now receives between 15,000 and 20,000 text messages per month for counselling intervention and assistance, facilitated by over 60 trained and well supervised counsellors, and is one of nine centres around the country, each of which average 18,000 counselling texts per month”.

“The Auckland University of Technology has been offering online text, live chat, and text counselling since 2005, and was the first University in New Zealand to offer such a service to its student community. The AUT service incorporates both a formal assessment process, and a referral pathway if a service applicant is deemed to be high risk and in need of more personal intervention” says Mr Taylor.

“Counselling therapeutic outcome research also illustrates that a strong therapeutic alliance can be forged between the counsellor and client utilising an online intervention protocol such as text, email, or live chat, a factor which the literature regularly affirms as one of the core conditions of a positive therapeutic outcome for a client”.

"Online Counselling options provide a number of benefits, including ease of access, a wider client reach, reduction of client stigma, a reduction of mobility barriers, and is cross-culturally relevant".

“I thus believe that it would be very useful if both professional associations and educational faculties related to the Counselling field worked towards integrating and accepting the role of online media as a valid and effective tool in counselling, subject to such an intervention tool being well appropriately supervised and managed. Social media is not something we as Practitioners need to be afraid of – it is simply something that we need to meaningfully incorporate into our ongoing Practice” said Mr Taylor.

ENDS