In January 2009, the British Medical Journal featured a study by Professor Cindy Dennis examining the benefits of telephone counselling. Looking particularly at post-partum depression, she found that it was far more effective than normal postnatal care in reducing symptoms and increasing the mother’s ability to recover from her depression.
In other studies the results have been similar – telephone counselling is an effective therapeutic intervention and it is also efficient. As Professor Dennis notes “Such care can also be more convenient than actually going to a therapist's office because the phone call can be scheduled for a time and place that's convenient for the patient. It can even help some people to speak more freely and feel more comfortable than they would in a normal face-to-face situation."
A study reported in 2006 by Reese - The Attractiveness of Telephone Counseling: An Empirical Investigation of Client Perceptions, in the Journal of Counseling & Development – found that 58% of people who had experienced both face-to-face and telephone counselling preferred telephone counselling.
Right Corecare’s delivery of personal therapy makes both telephone and face-to-face counselling available to customers. The key professional factors – high standards of qualification, experience and accreditation – apply whatever the mode of delivery, but what we find is that telephone counselling can be particularly effective when people find travel difficult, when they have severe time constraints, when they have particular needs that we can meet from our network but not necessarily close to where they live and for a host of other reasons.
Our telephone counsellors tell us that they find it an intense form of delivery that often enables the client to work at a deep level very quickly.
Have you experienced telephone counselling? Do you have a view of its effectiveness and purpose? Why not share your views at our blog?