Online counselling that is not a lesser version

Why online

Sometimes it is the better option, not the fallback

There is a assumption that online counselling is what you settle for when you cannot get to a room. For a lot of people it is actually the better choice, and occasionally it is the only reason the counselling happens at all.

• You live somewhere small enough that the local counsellor is also somebody's mother, and privacy is not realistic
• You are on the Shore or in Auckland but the traffic makes a weekly appointment quietly impossible
• You have young children and an hour away from the house is a logistical operation
• Shift work means your available times are not normal times
• What you want to talk about is something you cannot imagine walking into a building to discuss
• You travel for work and would rather not restart with someone new every few months

How a session runs

You get a link before your appointment. Click it at the time and we begin. There is nothing to install and no account to make. Sessions are the same length as in person, fifty minutes for individuals and seventy for couples, and the fee is identical.

Couples can sit together at one screen, which usually works best. Where that is not practical, joining from two locations is possible, though it does change the feel of the session and we would talk about that first.

What you need at your end

• A private space where you will not be overheard, which matters more than any of the technology
• A reasonable internet connection. If video drops out we switch to phone and carry on
• Headphones, which help more than people expect, both for privacy and for the sense of being in the room
• A door you can close, and where possible somebody else keeping an eye on the children

A car parked somewhere quiet is a perfectly legitimate counselling room. Plenty of people do it, particularly if home is full of people they are trying not to talk in front of.

Privacy

Sessions are not recorded, by me or by you. The same confidentiality applies as in the room, with the same narrow legal exceptions, all set out on the privacy page. At the start of the first online session I will ask who else is in your house, not to be intrusive, but because a session overheard through a wall is worse than no session.

When online is not the right call

If there is significant risk to your safety, if you are in acute crisis, or if you are going through a withdrawal that needs medical oversight, you need in person support and often more than counselling. I will say so plainly rather than continuing on video because it is convenient. Some trauma work also lands better in a room, and we would talk about that rather than assuming either way.