You’ve recognised the need to get some professional opinion and are willing to allow someone with trained experience into your personal life. Now, do you choose in-person counselling or online video-call counselling?

There are benefits and disadvantages to both forms – and the route you choose should speak to your current needs. Most individuals are very familiar with the protocols of in-person counselling. As a relatively new form of therapy that is exploding around the world, this article aims to address some of the benefits of video-call counselling.

1. The Comfort of Your Own Home

One of the greatest benefits of video-call counselling has to be that it can be accessed from the comfort of your own home. As the team behind kentuckycounselingcenter.com pointed out, for individuals who have a disability, have recently had surgery, undergoing treatment, or are currently too ill to attend sessions at a counselling centre, online therapy is a perfect option!

You do not need to organise transport or be presentable enough to leave your house. There are excellent platforms that allow you to choose from a multitude of mental health professionals who are waiting to build an individualised care plan with you! Counselling centres are always ready to work with new clients from around the state. Make the appointment with a click, and you can access a trained professional to help you meet your mental health needs.

2. Crippling Anxiety

For many people entering a therapeutic relationship can be stressful. However, those suffering from anxiety, or more severe anxiety or panic disorder, who may be desperately seeking relief from their crippling thoughts may not be able to leave the house. This is a big problem, but one that can be worked through video-call counselling.

Being in your own space will offer you some welcomed relief, with your personal items and comforts around you helping you feel safe enough to begin tackling stressors that are overwhelming you, causing great distress, and impacting the lifestyle that could be possible for you.

3. Time Constraints

A huge factor in video-calls counselling from your office or remote location is that it will save you a lot of time. We know parents are under huge time constraints, and this is precisely why being able to access psychological services without having to drive and wait for your appointment is so beneficial!

If your working schedule is busy, and you’ve been holding off on making time for counselling for months, if not longer, advances in technology now mean that therapy can come to you!

4. Little Waiting Time

Related time constraints, but for more urgent purposes, video-call counselling doesn’t require much waiting time for your appointment. And this is especially helpful during more serious situations, when the individual may be isolated or if they live in remote areas with limited social support.

The overall U.S. prevalence of suicidal ideation and self-harm is increasing, and this calls on a greater need for critical and emergency interventions. With video-call counselling, an individual who is experiencing a depressive episode, serious suicidal ideation, or contemplating self-harm can make a call to a specialist.

Being isolated and far from psychological crisis intervention, an individual who is suffering self-destructive thoughts and struggling to pull themselves out of their vicious cycle can simply dial someone who can help stabilise them and tend to their most critical safety needs.

Ideally, we would want people to prevent the need for such urgent calls. But, as many individuals do not get the medical and psychological help they deserve before an emergency, it is great to know that video-call counselling can be utilised once a struggling individual realises their needs are more serious.

Future of Counselling

As you can see, there are many advantages and special situations for which video-call counselling can be a life-saving tool. Though you may be wondering whether video calls are intimate enough, the short answer is yes!

You will be surprised at how connected a session may feel and how well a specialist will be able to pick up non-verbal cues. Additionally, with social communication platforms constantly improving, it is almost certain that video and audio quality will allow the counsellor and client to feel even closer in the near future than they do now.