The typical therapy session includes therapist and patient. While the patients render their heart and souls to them, therapists provides support that essential helps patients overcome life obstacles. Since the therapeutic experience involves so much intimacy, it is assumed that sessions should be conducted one-on-one in quiet areas. The internet, however, has proven this assumption to be invalid with its new avatar therapy sessions. Virtual therapy essentially takes the privacy associated with one-on-one sessions to the internet by allowing patients to log onto sessions and speak with counselors from the comfort of their living room or office. Such convenience ultimately eliminates the need to rearrange schedules to meet the shrink.
While it takes away privacy on one hand, virtual therapy adds comfort to the therapy experience on the other. When surveyed many virtual patients praised the new method of counseling because it allowed them to express themselves without fear of rejection from the counselor or other office personnel. The anxiety associated with meeting new people is alleviated when new patients attend their first session online, and veteran virtual attendees do not have to worry about saying the right or wrong things during session time. Participants have a higher level of autonomy, and such freedom allows the therapist to gauge the progress of patients.
Although the Internet should not be the platform for every profession, the field of therapy does well to take advantage of the World Wide Web. If online sessions will ultimately better serve patients, then the virtual alternative should be further explored. Research shows that virtual sessions beat out the face-to-face experience 95% to 37%, and that is something to be reckoned with. While avatar therapy is clearly not for the individual unable to discern between reality and fantasy, it should be viewed as a serious form of treatment for other patients.