Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

CyberCounseling

Published by

Matt Stone

2007-03-16

Note to self. Must check out these articles by John Court:

Court, J. H. & Winwood, P. (2005). Seeing the light in cyberspace: A cautionary tale of developing a practical model for cybercounseling and cybersupervision within the University of South Australia. Journal of Technology in Counseling, 4, 1.

Beel, N. and Court, J. H. (2000) Ethical issues in Internet counselling. Clinical Psychologist, 4, 2, 35- 42.

I fortuitously came across these while looking up reviews on ‘Hypnosis, Healing and the Christian‘ (Court, 2002), a book that I’ve found very useful over the years. Seems there’s more of his works I should be reading.

One of the issues I obviously have to grapple with as part of my own situation while studying the Foundations of Christian Counseling is the ethics of cybercounseling. The powerful body language techniques I’ve been learning have highlighted some of the limitations of not counseling face to face. I can already see it’s not ideal. Yet often I find myself in situations without asking for it. I have to work with where I’m at. How do I do it better? How might the experiences of phone counselors (I know a few) shed light on my situation?

I also need to read up on the ethics of writing about counseling case studies. Egan’s book, The Skilled Helper, is full of examples, so obviously he’s resolved some of the hurdles in his own mind at least. I’m still working it out – how much can I blog on, where do I draw the line? In my uncertainly I am practicing a high degree of censorship. Confidentiality must come first. But what is reasonable without compromising confidentiality?

Oh – I must try and get in touch with Court. I’ve been reading more of his site which I write this. Apart form altered states of consciousness and cybercounseling, he lists integration of psychology and theology as a research interest. And he’s based in Australia. And he models what he’s talking about – he’s uploaded a streaming video presentation on cybercounseling. What a fascinating video!

Note: This thread, College Reflections, is to be submitted for assessment as part of my coursework in The Foundations of Christian Counseling at Morling College at the end of Semester 1, 2007. If you would like to speak to me about issues I raise in this thread, but are concerned about privacy, please email me privately instead of leaving a public comment.

Tags Psychology, Technology

5 responses to “CyberCounseling”

Peggy

2007-03-16

Well, Matt…good luck to you here…the challenges of cybercounseling are even greater than phone counseling: TYPOS!
Your last sentence says “Please do submit comments to this thread if you are uncomfortable with that.” Now, I could wonder whether you’re just messing with us with your typical subtle humor…or was that a typo?
How many times do we blog and end up not checking what we typed before we “POST” and miss both obvious typos as well as things that are not said as clearly as we would wish?
The other problem is the time delay in response…all those clues about how someone is authentically processing are lost because you cannot observe the pondering…even on the phone you get the silence or fumbling for words.
But most of all, while I am not a “professional counselor”, I am a pastor; and it would seem prudent to err on the side of confidentiality — especially in blogdom — especially while you are in process with a client.
The use of the blog to process your thoughts is both comfortable and tempting…but your name is attached to this blog, and what would a client feel if they found that you were blogging about the process? Might that undermine their confidence (in all senses of the word!) in you? That could be tragic…
I would be very interested to see what others feel about this.
And I wish the very best for your studies and admire your desire to serve our Lord by serving people. You have many obvious gifts and the old saying is still true: with great gifts comes great responsibility.
Be blessed.
And I fully understand that this comment will be submitted as part of this thread in your coursework 😉

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Matt Stone

2007-03-16

Peggy, thanks for your thoughts and helping me to process this. See, while things that are written to me in confidence are always kept in confidence, I wonder, even when writing about myself and how I am feeling on any given day, without any direct reference to ‘clients’ or stuff they are going through whatsoever. Could even that be problematic?
What if I’ve just had a bad day at work and am blowing off some steam online. Could there be opportunity for people I am helping to misinterpret my posts and read their situation into my agitated state? I suspect yes. But does that possibility require me to go into a blog hiatus whenever I am helping someone? It’s through my blogging that many people approach me! I am not sure I can easily resolve this tension but I must at some of the amazing stuff I’ve come across, I would least highen my awareness of it and how it could come across to others.

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Peggy

2007-03-16

First of all, I did take the opportunity to view the cybercounseling video. Very well done and interesting.
I certainly understand your situation…and I wonder whether there is such a thing as a closed blog…for lack of a better term…a place where a group of individuals who are known to each other can blog safely and in context with each other so that their thoughts can be processed transparently, but they are not wide open on the net. Does that make any sense?
I expect that blogging is problemmatic in a number of ways—not unlike one of the reasons Hamo noted—for people in any kind of leadership/fiduciary function. Here are just two:
1. The open and transparent processing of frustration and confusion can harm or undermine the confidence of those who are very vulnerable and looking to that person for help or direction. The whole “stumbling block” issue.
2. The pseudocommunity of the blog is open to much misunderstanding because there can be little trusted intimacy…communication that is face to face is fraught with peril; blogdom is doubly so. People will make assumptions based on an off-handed comment and off they go…I surely am preaching to the choir here!
That is not to say that you can’t blog during counseling…but that you have to introduce a filter. The very idea of a blogging filter may seem an oxymoron, but you already know that you have other filters. I’ve “seen” them already on your blog.
I believe that there must be a way that your burden can be shared appropriately, brother. I will pray with you that God reveals it to you.
Blessings,

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Matt Stone

2007-05-19

Peggy
Thanks for all your comments here. I’ve been chewing over them quite a bit since you made them and have had a number of discussions with John Court and the college staff in the meantime to work through the disclosure issues.
My thinking on cybercounseling has evolved (so thanks) and where I find myself now is that I agree that blogs are an innapropriate forum for working through any deeply personal issues and if I person does raise any the best thing I could do would be to refer them to professional counselor. Furthermore I can see that even email could be hazardous and would only use it to help another person get to the point where they would accept a referal to professional help.
Also I can also see that, if I take up professional counseling, it would be best to discontinue blogging on even my thought processes on counseling. In any case I will likely discontinue it anyway at the end of this semester.
Oh, and I have amended the last sentance too to remove the typos.

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Peggy

2007-05-22

Matt,
What a joy to hear that I have been some help to your process, and that you have been able to have good conversations with Court and others. God is so faithful.
I’ve been doing some thinking on “virtual mentoring” for a chapter I am contributing to a collaborative e-book…and I think you might be interested in the concept as it might apply to your circumstance. If so, e-mail me and we can chat off-blog about it.
Blessings,

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