Oh, no! Moment from Online Therapy
Taking a break from some of our more educational topics, I thought it could be fun to take some time today to discuss some of the more humorous sides of online therapy. In the spring of 2020, when almost the majority of our therapy practices moved to online therapy, it was a significant shift for both therapists and clients. And through this growth process, a lot of great things occurred, including greater access to services, confidence in our ability to continue on with services despite restrictions on face-to-face contact, and increasing our comfortability with online therapy platforms.
However, as is true for any time of change and growth, some less than professional moments of course occurred along the way. Of course, there were the technical difficulties, the family and child interferences, doorbell and postman deliveries, and lawn and roofing services causing excessive background noise, but there were also some very unique moments that caught the client and therapist off guard. Today we will take some time to unpack some of my most memorable, less than professional moments in online therapy, and interestingly, my top three stories all have to do with some form of animal interference.
Getting up close in personal with cats…
One of my favorite aspects of online therapy is getting to meet many of my client’s pets. Pets often come up in the conversation of therapy as a theme, a source of support, or even just an aspect of the things that are most important to clients, and an amazing part of online therapy is that, if clients are logging on from their home, often times I get to meet some of these creatures that are important to them.
One interesting thing about cats is, that they tend to choose when and how they desire to be a part of the therapy process. It’s not uncommon that cats will start walking across tables or desks and enter the frame of the video at various points throughout a therapy session. One slightly unfortunate aspect of cats and video therapy is that more times than I can count, cats have walked into the video turns to face their owner, aligning there… Rear end…. Directly in front of the laptop camera.
Dog disconnections.
As a dog owner myself, a bonus to online therapy has been being able to have my own dogs attend work with me from my home office. In the spring of 2020 when I started working from home more significantly, it did not take long for my dogs to become very acquainted with the work-from-home schedule, and they quite enjoyed snuggling up for afternoon naps while I was logging on with clients. Early on in the pandemic, I was utilizing an online therapy platform that had a few quirks to it. One of these quirks was, that if I connected or disconnected the power to my computer in the middle of the session, for some reason, it would trip the video and require me to log on or reconnect to the session that I was in. (Not to worry, we have made some significant progress in our technologies over the past few years, and this quirk no longer exists on the platforms that I use.)
A few months into the pandemic I was dog sitting for a friend, and Cocoa decided mid-session that she needed a little extra attention. The unfortunate element was, that Cocoa is not the most graceful creature and in the process of attempting to situate herself for optimal petting, she tripped over the power cord to my computer, disconnecting me from the client I was working with. So yes, Cocoa hung up on my client.
A few reckless birds.
And for my final animal interference of online therapy to share, we take to the skies. For those who participated in video meetings, you can relate to the fact that lighting is sometimes awkward and the positioning of a desk in a home office can be important to avoid weird aesthetics. When creating a more permanent office space in my home, I positioned my desk to face one of my windows to have access to more natural lighting and a professional look. Aside from the occasional distraction of watching a neighbor walk by, this has been working out quite well for me. Until, one day in the early spring, in the midst of a fairly deep conversation with a client, one of the birds nesting in a tree outside of the window somehow assumed a reckless flight pattern, and slam straight into the window in front of me. As you can imagine, this was quite a startling event, and I responded with a full jump out of my seat and some vocal exclamations. The poor client that I was working with was very caught off guard and afraid that I was somehow in danger. Thankfully, after a few moments of laughter, explaining the situation, and ensuring that the bird had recovered and was not in need of immediate attention, we were able to proceed.
Therapy is a human process. Both the client and the therapist are humans, and the unscripted, unexpected element of therapy is what makes this work fun, exciting, and at times a little bit humorous. I hope you enjoyed some of the lighter sides of online therapy, and a break from some of our more serious or educational tones in posts.
If you are interested in trying online therapy for yourself, we would love to connect with you. Our team from our Arlington, Texas-based therapy group is able to offer online therapy services to all residents of Texas. Contact us today so that we can help assist you in taking the next steps in your health and wellness journey.
