ONLINE PSYCHOTHERAPY: TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ISSUES

This paper arises from the shift, following the start of the 23 March 2020 lockdown in Britain, from clinic-based to online psychotherapy within National Health Service (NHS) psychological treatment services. The paper draws on previously published observations about privately funded online psychotherapy. It also provides a snapshot of my own and my clinical psychology colleagues' experience of providing clinic-based and online NHS-funded psychotherapy before and soon after the March 2020 lockdown began. I use these impressionistic data to illustrate transference and countertransference issues involved in online psychotherapy. In addition, I note problems relating to its setting or frame, and ways in which this form of treatment can obstruct empathic mirroring and the patient's experience of being contained. I conclude by noting limitations of this study based as it was on the immediate reaction of myself and my colleagues to the transition from providing clinic-based to online psychotherapy, not on interviews with patients about their experience of this transition nor on any measure of the relative effectiveness of online compared with clinic-based psychotherapy.