New York Online Therapy/Phone Therapy: Making House Calls

For New Patients, Establishing A Relationship With A New York Online Therapist Can Feel Vulnerable 

When thinking about beginning therapy, whether in person in our offices in Lower Manhattan and Park Slope, Brooklyn or New York online therapy sessions, establishing a relationship can feel particularly daunting. It’s hard to open up to a stranger, particularly about your most vulnerable experiences, thoughts, and feelings. When we see our NYC patients remotely, we are making house calls. This can mean therapists are more prone to seeing your dirty laundry, quite literally, earlier in the treatment than ever.

For folks that are new–new to the relationship, new to remote therapy sessions, or new to therapy in general–this can feel particularly vulnerable. Many people relish leaving their homes to come to an office where they know their secrets and most intimate feelings can be kept and contained safely. Separate spaces can facilitate compartmentalization, wherein people can detach themselves from the content and experience of the therapy session, sometimes as simply as by walking out the office door and reemerging into life.

We Understand How Exposing It Can Feel To Invite Us Into Your Home In Remote Therapy: And We Act Accordingly

Further, though confidentiality remains the same in phone therapy and online therapy in New York, there is an added element of safety that folks feel when they are in an office distanced from their lives. They feel they have more control over their narratives, what they are sharing and keeping from the therapist, and often feel more in control of treatment in general. We should note this doesn’t mean they’re doing something wrong or “lying” to their therapist. Sometimes it just takes time to feel safe in a relationship (keeping some things private until you trust your therapist is actually usually a sign of health and astute judgment).

As NYC remote therapists, we know how exposing and out of control it can feel when a child wanders into the room during an online therapy session on Zoom or Google Meet. We understand how intimate it is for couples to sit on their beds for a web-based couples therapy session, talking about their sex lives. And we get how vulnerable it can feel for any new person, even a phone and video chat therapist, to be inside your home with you. 

We Can Help You Find Privacy For Online Therapy 

The title “therapist” or the letters after our names might not alleviate all of your stranger danger worries, for a good reason. NYC online therapists should be facilitating these conversations early on in the work, making it clear that there are still ways to take things slow and to build trust, even in the context of your home. Therapists can also help provide feedback and tools to ensure privacy, including using your cellphone as a noise machine, doing the remote therapy session from your car or simply, helping you think critically about scheduling to maximize privacy.

After Building Trust With A Remote Therapist, Patients Value The Closeness Of Online Therapy And Phone Therapy

As trust continues to build, you might begin to appreciate all the ways that New York online therapy can be more integrated into your life rather than function like a detached limb. It can even feel more reassuring to have your phone or video chat therapist more closely “witness” what you are talking about, even if not directly. For folks that have been in therapy in the past, the new context of closeness in teletherapy and video conferencing therapy sessions can allow you and your remote therapist to take a deeper dive into some experiences or dynamics that are feeling unresolved.