Online Therapy

Hi everyone.

I've decided to try online therapy to help me with my severe dental phobia and anxiety. I'm not really sure what to expect, as I've never tried it before.

I'm hopeful that it will help. I'm also glad that I'm now working with a new dentist who is compassionate and gentle. He understands what I'm going through with my phobia and anxiety and he's very patient with me. I hope in time we will build a trusting relationship. Right now I'm having a hard time trusting him due to my past bad experiences with other dentists. I want to trust him, but something in my mind is holding me back.

I'm wondering if anyone on here has ever tried online therapy and how it worked for them.

The site I'm using is a not real time messaging site where you can leave messages/posts any time of day or night for your therapist and they can reply back to you whenever they're able to. They try to reply back as soon as possible and don't usually go more than 24 hours without replying.

There is also options for phone call sessions or video chat sessions for an extra fee. I don't feel comfortable with these and I'll only be using the messaging feature.

The nice thing is that the first week (7 days) are free. There is no limit to how many times you and your therapist can talk during the day or week.

I'm hopeful, but nervous about this.

Anyone who has input on this please share.

Thank you.

JJ

I have used online therapy for two years. It does have a lot of advantages, as well as some disadvantages, comparing to traditional therapy.
A word of caution is to use the same screening criteria that you would for your face to face therapist. Online therapy can be very real and do both good and harm. So, do not compromise your criteria when choosing a service. Treat it as regular therapy. The Internet gives a false feeling of animosity and security. See my other posts here.
The advantages I find are usually in cost and access to therapy, i.e. no driving, no parking fees, no transportation fees, no overhead for the therapist, so fees are usually a bit lower, access is available from anywhere and at any time, which could be very important. I found that waiting 7 days to discuss something that distressed me today in traditional therapy was not very helpful for me. Access and relief are faster.
I believe in some cases, this makes online therapy more effective, as having 24/7 access allows you to learn how to resolve every day issues faster and is not replicated in traditional therapy settings.
I imagine, it could be helpful for someone with ongoing anxiety. It also gives you a peace of mind that someone is there for you most, if not all of the time, and any time you need to talk.
Another advantage is, actually having the advice and guidance available to you in writing. You can go back at any time and review what happened or reflect on certain thoughts and advice. This makes therapy more structured and to me, again, effective. You actually get real help out of it. It is not like going to an office and crying for half an hour, which could be emotionally relieving, but not helpful in the long term. Here, you actually verbalize and the other side has to respond.
What else can I say. I find that if you are shy, have transference issues, body image issues, or awkward social skills, it is easier to open up online. Sure, the body language is not there, which could be a huge disadvantage for the therapist, but the judgement is not there as well. The occasional frown, or a feeling that someone is staring at your breasts are not there as well. To me, this was more important. Therapists are human and online therapy eliminates a lot of human factors, making it more "theoretical" or streamlined for the client.

Hi JJ86
Hope you therapist helped you with what was a ‘severe dental phobia and anxiety’.
If not, there is a very effective technique which worked well for me. Let know if you are still interesting
Sincerely.

John-45,

Could you tell me what your technique is? I must see a dentist, but I keep putting it off because I'm terrified of dental work.

Thank you

This thread is over a year old. His last visit here was in August 2016.
You may want to try PM-ing him or maybe someone will respond.
There are some dentists that offer sedation dentistry so you can basically sleep through the procedure?

The dentist I last saw does not offer sedation and I can't switch him because he is that good.