Online therapy in the face of the de-escalation of confinement

After the first impact that we have suffered as a society as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, we are at a moment in which we are advancing towards progressive de-escalation, the phases, the "new normality", the new affective codes, the first contacts and meetings with relatives and friends…

But We are prepared, as citizens, to return to our routines and our responsibilities as we had them conceived before the state of alarm?

This question is brought to us by many of the patients that we have the privilege of accompanying at this time from the team that makes up the TAP Center. We convey to them the need to continue building "today", without anticipating "tomorrow" and without dwelling on "yesterday"; part of our goal for them is to provide them with tools to manage the uncertainty, fear, discomfort and anxiety that this crisis has produced or that has been empowered.

• Related article: "Mental health: definition and characteristics according to psychology"

The usefulness of online therapy in the pandemic crisis

Our therapeutic format continues to be exclusively online to this day, since we are staunch defenders of progressive changes and adjusted to the needs of our patients. We will return to a face-to-face format, but these almost three months have allowed us to have more experimentation in telecare, online psychology or online therapy. During this time we have been able to assess together with our patients the unquestionable value of this formula.

There are many benefits that we have found in online therapy since practicing the current volume of appointments that we have experienced:

• Facilitates regularity between sessions
• Meets the reduced mobility needs of the patient
• It has greater temporal agility
• Has high time flexibility
• Developed in a safe and secure environment
• It has no geographical limitation
• Direct benefit of the digital resources we currently have
• Greater privacy

We suspect that this online format, for many professionals and for many patients, was an "aberration" in the intervention and psychological help processes themselves. Lack of knowledge often leads us to prejudge processes and label them insufficient and negative, but now that as a society we have experienced video calls, video conferences, teleworking and the online therapy we have valued its functionality, attesting through experimentation that the format works, that it is valid and reliability and that there is an improvement in our psychological state after each of the online sessions that have been maintained in the processes therapy open.

From Centro TAP we are going to continue betting on this intervention formula in our therapeutic processes, as well as in the online training actions that we have launched; We currently have three in this format: Emotional Management, Emotional Intelligence for Families, and Postpartum Emotional Accompaniment.

We are preparing a greater training offer with this formula, we want to continue betting on a quality training service now online. We know that there are many free offers on the Internet that can initially "satisfy" the consumer's need to learn, but we want to compete against this free with quality, rigor and professionalism, the team of professionals that make up Centro TAP is highly qualified offering an unbeatable experience of learning.

As the Community of Madrid advances in its de-escalation phases, we will continue to combine our services in both formats, both face-to-face and online, we want to reach all the people who need us without limitations or restrictions on geography, mobility or temporary adequacy.