Connecting empathically, online

Online psychotherapy is an exciting service delivery technology for the mental health field. Although its origins date back to the 1990s, tele-health has really come into its own in the age of Coronavirus. One of the most frequent criticisms I hear involve the perception that its impossible for a video call to facilitate true empathic connection. The argument usually reasons that the subtleties of nonverbal communication are lost in digital displays, or that human beings absolutely must have physical proximity to meaningfully relate. 

It has been my experience over the past 15 years of involvement with this technology that true empathic connection is not only possible online, it is no more difficult or evasive than when the connection is sought in person. Today’s communication devices almost universally provide high definition video and audio that easily relay nonverbal communications. More important than the mundane technical aspects of the number of pixels counted in a display’s height and width, it is the provider’s empathic skill that generates the third dimension of emotional depth.