Psychotherapists' Attitudes Toward Online Therapy During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people across the world have been advised to work from home in an effort to slow down the spreading of the virus. Within the field of psychotherapy, this meant that many psychotherapists who were used to seeing their patients in person transitioned to providing therapies online via videoconferencing, regardless of their previous experience or attitudes toward online psychotherapy. This survey study examined how psychotherapists' attitudes toward online psychotherapy is influenced by their characteristics and professional experiences during the sudden transition from face-to-face to online psychotherapy because of the pandemic. We collected real-time data from 145 psychotherapists from North America and Europe shortly after a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization. Participants reported on their past experiences with online psychotherapy, their preparations of their online psychotherapy sessions during the pandemic, the challenges they encountered in online sessions, and their attitudes toward online psychotherapy more generally. Within the context of this forced transition because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, most psychotherapists identified a somewhat positive attitude toward online psychotherapy, suggesting they were likely to use online psychotherapy in the future. Our findings suggest that psychotherapists' attitudes toward online psychotherapy are influenced by their past experiences, such as psychotherapy modality, clinical experience, and previous online psychotherapy experience as well as their transition experience during the pandemic and their geographic location. Within the limitations of this survey study, implications and future directions for research are described.