How do client and therapists in online text therapy experience their exchanges and relationship?

The impact of online therapy text exchanges and the client-therapist alliance was compared to previously published means and standard deviations on face-to-face therapy using an aggregate benchmarking strategy. Further, the moderating effects of 4 participant factors found significant in the face-to-face therapy literature was investigated using mixed modeling analytic techniques. Thirty therapists and 30 clients visited an online site to report weekly to complete session impact and therapeutic alliance measures for a minimum of six weeks, which allowed for a naturalistic and nuanced examination of the process of online text psychotherapy.

Impact of exchanges and client-therapist alliance in online-text psychotherapy.

The impact of exchanges and client-therapist alliance of online therapy text exchanges were compared to previously published results in face-to-face therapy, and the moderating effects of four participant factors found significant in previously published face-to-face studies were investigated using statistical mixed-effect modeling analytic techniques. Therapists (N=30) and clients (N=30) engaged in online therapy were recruited from private practitioner sites, e-clinics, online counseling centers, and mental-health-related discussion boards. In a naturalistic design, they each visited an online site weekly and completed the standard impact and alliance questionnaires for at least 6 weeks.

Online data collection for psychotherapy process research.

A preliminary investigation addressed the feasibility of using a specially designed online database to collect psychotherapy session impact and therapist-client alliance data and compared these online measures to published results of their paper-and-pencil counterparts. Participants drawn from a psychology department clinic, a student counseling center, and community agencies visited an online site to report on each of their sessions. Some clients and therapists visited the online database on a regular basis; however, client recruitment and participation was problematic.