Assessment for Online & Face to Face Counselling: Taking Care of Clients Workshop with Kate Dunn & John Wilson

The impact on clients of moving in and out of physical presence with their therapist may be profound.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, therapists and their clients have found themselves having to meet in unexpected places. Sessions were moved online overnight and we all found ourselves working in ways and in places that were deeply unfamiliar and, at times, challenging. As regulations have been tightened and loosened in response to the crisis, sessions have been moved from shared physical space to cyberspace and back again, in some cases, a number of times. In fact, many therapists have discovered a form of flexibility of which they were previously unaware. Who knew that you could arrange a virtual session to replace one that would previously have always taken place in the therapist’s consulting room? What surprises have presented themselves as we have discovered these possibilities?

As we reflect on all that we have learned it can feel liberating and exciting to see this way of working as offering many new freedoms of choice that we may want to maintain in our future practice. However, what is the full impact on the individuals involved of making these sudden changes and might there be some clients and, indeed, some therapists for whom frequent changes of presence and location could create significant challenges to the overall wellbeing of those involved and to the therapeutic potential within the relationship itself?

In this workshop, John and Kate will be thinking further about resilience, attachment patterns and styles of processing, as we consider the impact of repeated change of locations and ways of meeting . We will explore approaches to assessing this impact more fully so that we might more easily identify those who may be more reactive to a change of setting. We can then set about determining a more meaningful therapeutic plan for each individual therapist and client relationship based on this assessment process.

The workshop will combine presentation with smaller group discussions and offer opportunities for those attending to share examples of experiences and discoveries they have made, to add to our understanding of what may be happening here. If you are considering how to incorporate new ways of working with clients into your future practice, do come along and join us as we think more deeply about the implications that arise.