During this stressful time, many of us will be struggling with anxiety or low mood, especially if you are self-isolating or on lockdown, with few chances to leave the house. If you are finding it hard to cope during the coronavirus outbreak, first and foremost connect with your friends and loved ones.

Social distancing is, in my opinion, not the most helpful term right now. Instead, we should all be physically distancing but socially connecting – by phone, social media, Skype, Zoom or any other way that lets us stay in touch with those we love, while keeping them and ourselves safe.

If you need more help than that, do reach out to me or another mental-health professional, who can offer guidance and support during this hard time. I have long worked with clients online via Zoom. It also means I can help people all over the world, which is wonderful. I am offering both short-term and long-term therapy during the current crisis.

Here are a few guidelines about how online therapy works:

I use Zoom for online sessions – it has revamped its privacy/security recently, so I am confident it’s a secure and confidential platform for therapy. Using Zoom is very simple. Before your session, I will send you a link via email, which you click on to join an online ‘waiting room’. At the start of the session, I click on your name to begin our session, then lock the meeting to ensure complete confidentiality.
I will create a shared folder on Dropbox, so that we can share important documents like an intake form, or notes I want you to read after a session. This means that all communication is confidential (Dropbox also has strict security measures in place).
You may feel uneasy about having therapy online. But, having provided hundreds of online sessions over the years, I find it works very well for schema therapy. We get to see each other and hear each other’s voice. And clients tell me they feel safe and connected to me.
That said, we need to be flexible to make it work. Exercises like chair work are obviously a bit trickier online! But I do them, regularly, and will explain how to make them work. After the session I will send you an iZettle invoice, so you can pay quickly and securely. And that’s it!

If you have any questions about online session with me, email dan@danroberts.com or use the contact form to get in touch.

Warm wishes,

Dan