Online Therapy

Virtual Counseling; An Online Option for Crisis Assistance

Since the internet has become available to most everyone, you can easily start or continue your therapy online with online therapy  Finding a life coach or mental health counselor online is easy. Depending upon your needs, you will look for someone with specific education and experience.

The Life Coach can be someone who can help you identify your life or career goals and give suggestions for reaching your goals.  The Life Coach may or may not have a counseling degree. Check the Life Coach’s references and vita before using his or her services.  There are many great life coaches out there. Finding one who fits you and your needs can easily be done online.

Another type of therapy is done by a person who is licensed, sometimes as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker or Licensed Professional Counselor. These titles can be different in different states, but, in general, are people with a master’s degree from an accredited university who did a supervised internship and had to pass a state licensing examination.  They have been or are planning to be in private practice.

Reasons for availing yourself of online counseling can be varied depending on your needs.  Often distance can be a good reason.  If you live far from a counselor’s office, online therapy can be a lifesaver.  If your problems seem to be physical or organic, see a psychiatrist or your primary care physician for diagnostic work. If you are found to be not in need of medication to manage your condition, then seeing an online counselor can be a great way to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Another reason to do online counseling might be that your long term therapist retired or moved or perhaps you moved. You wish to continue seeing that same therapist, so you arrange to see him or her online. With the increased popularity of Skype, you can continue the relationship online.  

Online therapists are held to the same standards and hold the same licenses as the people you see face to face.  Before setting up any contract with an online counseling service, be sure to interview your counselor to be to assure you are a good fit. A good therapist might not specialize in your particular situation but will refer you to one that will better your needs.  

Donna continues to see some of her clients from South Louisiana even after we have been in Arkansas for over a year. They use either Skype or Facetime. It seems to be working for all of them.

Check it out. Online therapy might work well for you.

Hurricane Hell, Ten Years Later

One of the main reasons we took on this small, cedar-sided home on six-plus acres in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas, is because this place doesn't have hurricanes: No Katrinas here.

You're gonna be hearing and seeing media coverage about the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  It started with Robin Roberts' special last night. She did a great job telling the stories she did.  But there are just so many stories...

Many people did not even realize that they were suffering from the effects of trauma.  Over a year post-Katrina, a woman in her early seventies came to me, not knowing the reason for her debilitating anxiety and depression.  She had never before had these problems.  Let's call her Mary.  

"I didn't lose anything in the hurricane... My whole family evacuated to our home north of Slidell... We all did fine." We talked for several sessions, exploring possible causes. During one appointment, Mary matter-of-factly said, "I was glad we didn't live in New Orleans East anymore... I had a good friend, Susan, she and her husband, Joe, used to be our next-door neighbors... Susan died waiting to be rescued."  I asked her to elaborate. 

After Katrina, Mary had offered to help Joe salvage things from their now uninhabitable home.  "We went up in the attic... Sue and Joe had been forced to go up there 'cause of the rising waters from the damned levee breaches. You could still see the hole Joe'd chopped in the roof for some air... and so they could wave their make-shift flag - a pink slip of Sue's - at the rescue helicopters... As I looked around, something caught me eye... I went over to pick it up off the floor... There wasn't much light... I bent over and grabbed it... (Mary involuntarily shivered and grimaced.)  It was sticky and yuckie - smelly.  I quickly shook it off my hand..."  

What was it?  Joe explained to Mary that that was where Susan was laying when she died.  Mary had grabbed a part of Sue's scalp and hair that had rotted off her head, and had stuck to the attic floor, three days post-mortem, when rescuers finally got around to collecting Sue's body.  They'd rescued the husband; he'd been alive.  His wife had died that night before.  Rescuing" the already dead was not a priority so the body had laid there - doing what dead bodies do, in the sweltering heat of early September in Louisiana.