Online therapy has broken barriers: interview with Sandra Bernal

The concept of what it means to attend psychotherapy is usually anchored in stereotypes, at least among the majority of people who have never attended a psychologist as patients. The image of a person lying on a couch while the professional takes notes is common, although it is also biased. In fact, today to be able to attend therapy it is not even necessary to be in person at the consultation or psychological cabinet.

Online therapy is already a perfectly established reality in countries like Spain. This is something that professionals like Sandra Bernal Mora, who has oriented her work above all to this format of psychological assistance, which has multiple advantages, although it also performs face-to-face therapy in Valencia.

• Related article: "How to find a psychologist to attend therapy: 7 tips"

"Online therapy has broken barriers": interview with psychologist Sandra Bernal

We talk to the psychologist Sandra Bernal to explain your professional experience with online therapy.

What made you start offering an online psychotherapy service?

I realized that people have many problems when looking for a psychologist: how to find the right person and how can you access them wherever you are?

In my case, there were people who knew me and wanted to work through their problems with me. However, distance was the main barrier that limited us. That was really what prompted me to create the online therapy services that I have today.

I believe that the great advantage par excellence of online psychotherapy is the enormous accessibility it provides. Not only because of how comfortable it is, but also because it allows you to maintain continuity with your psychologist despite changes, moves, and other circumstances. It doesn't matter if you are traveling or living in another country, the people I work with know that they can count on me no matter what.

Surely many people do not imagine how an Internet psychotherapy session takes place. What is the process like from the moment you contact the psychologist until the first session begins?

It is a comfortable and simple process, since you can do everything at the click of a button. In my case, through the website, in the "request an appointment" menu, you can select the preferred day and time to have the session and make the payment directly.

Once the session is booked, the person will receive a confirmation email (sometimes it can take a while, as that I am the one who will send it and if I am attending to someone at that moment it may take a while further).

As there are different services (videoconference, telephone and chat), depending on the chosen method, access to the session will be different. In the case of video conferencing and chat, the person will receive a link in the email they left when making the reservation. By clicking on that link, the person enters directly into a session with me.

Are there measures to guarantee the confidentiality of what is discussed in therapy over the Internet?

Yes, there are measures for it. As for video calls and chat, they are end-to-end encrypted, that is, the message becomes an indecipherable code, so confidentiality is fully protected.

On the other hand, phone calls are costly to trace in addition to needing many human and technological resources, in addition to the requirement to access communication systems.

Does being able to attend psychotherapy without leaving home make patients open up more and more easily show their real problems and vulnerabilities?

There are people who have no problem opening up completely from the first moment, but the truth is that there are many other people for whom certain things are more difficult. Online therapy breaks this barrier. From my experience, it can be a facilitator for the person to be able to "undress" and be totally authentic much sooner than in face-to-face therapy.

What are the advantages of online psychotherapy that you notice clients value most?

Flexibility, comfort and not wasting time traveling are just some of the most valued strengths. However, apart from these, the advantages of online therapy are many: from not having to limit yourself to the psychologists who are close to you, saving time, anonymity through the network and easy access from a phone.

As new technologies develop, do you think that in a few years there will still be more options and functionalities in the world of online therapy?

Surely yes. And that's a very good thing. We have already made great strides in being able to offer different services over the Internet. However, I believe that there are still many people who are unaware of everything we can achieve in terms of online therapy, psychology and personal growth with a medium as powerful as this.

Do you think that online therapy has popularized the possibility of attending psychotherapy?

I believe that online therapy has broken barriers by offering psychological assistance to people who do not know dared to take the step of seeing a psychologist, or could not do so due to their circumstances geographical.

I think that part of the concept of going to the psychologist has changed. Thanks to the ease of accessing the sessions, priority is given to what is really important in therapy: the person himself, his story and what he wants to achieve.

On the other hand, I think that a very important aspect is that people end up feeling accompanied in the distance.