A quantitative study on Videoconferencing Psychotherapy: the more control clinicians want, the more features they need. (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Covid-19 forced psychologists and other mental health professionals to use videoconference platforms. Previous research highlights therapists’ hesitation towards adopting the medium since they find it hard to establish control over Videoconference Psychotherapy. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate whether the introduction of new technical features might improve clinicians’ control over Videoconference Psychotherapy METHODS In total, 121 mental health professionals responded to our survey, but only 86 participants provided complete data. We used Exploratory Factor Analysis to scrutinise the data collected. Three factors were identified: Challenges in providing Videoconference Psychotherapy, Features to enhance Therapeutic Relationship and Enhancing Control. Path analysis was used to observe the relationship between factors on their own and with adjustment to participants’ areas of expertise and year in practice. RESULTS This study highlighted a relationship between the three factors identified. It emerges that the introduction of features reduces therapists’ challenges in the provision of Videoconferencing Psychotherapy. Moreover, the additional features help therapists to enhance control over their Videoconference Psychotherapy sessions. CONCLUSIONS This study has shown how by augmenting therapists’ control over their Videoconference Psychotherapy, clinicians would be able to impact patients’ reality, and facilitate successful therapy outcomes. Moreover, this study confirms the Video as a third agent which prevents therapists from influencing clients’ reality due to technical and relational limits. Additionally, this study supports the General System Theory which permitted to incorporate the Video in our exploration and to explain its agency in Videoconference psychotherapy.