Telehealth: Accessible Therapy For the Masses

It is an exciting time for healthcare as it evolves into the connected age, and it is no surprise that mental health is joining the telehealth revolution as well. Increased access to mental health services means better health care and higher quality of life for patients in any location. 

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, in 2012 there were an estimated 43.7 million adults in the U.S with some form of mental disorder. Currently around 18 million of them suffer from depression, with statistics skewed toward higher prevalence among young adults. Mental Health care has taken leaps forward in the last 20 years, but illnesses affecting the human mind’s cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social and motivational faculties remain among the most complex and challenging to treat. It doesn't help that 80 million Americans live in areas where access to mental health services are in short supply. The current in-person care model doesn't adequately support these numbers, but thankfully the addition of telehealth services makes total coverage not only possible, but probable.

Building rapport between client and therapist is an essential precondition for effective therapy and diagnosis, and before telehealth video conferencing, in-person visits were necessary to pick up all required visual cues. Now that crucial communication can be completed by any therapist in any location, connecting specialists with patients who need them. Patients who live in rural areas no longer have to drive hours for a weekly visit, or take time off work to get to their therapist's office. TruClinic's secure telehealth software runs directly out of any browser, so a patient could have a face to face session with his therapist while sitting in his car during his lunch break, or a psychaitrist could go to a conference out of state and still keep her apointments by using her iPad in her hotel room.

The value of telehealth technology becomes palpable when considering self-harm prevention. Already it is customary for therapists to provide 24/7 availability for clients deemed to be at risk for suicide or self-harm. Until recently this function could only be expressed through phone calls, a limited channel that doesn't show facial expressions or physical cues that therapists are taught to look for. With immediate, secure video calls, mental health practitioners can now offer patients the consistancy of an instantaneous session, a device which could help save lives and prevent costly institutionalization.

Additionally, many clients feel more comfortable disclosing details about their personal life in a familiar setting such as their home. It helps many patients feel less scrutinized, and it's been proven that familiar effects eases recall and makes people feel less guarded. Confining therapy sessions to a closed, stuffy office, especially when offices are so often associated with the judgemental atmosphere of the workplace, could be counterproductive.

Cramming an entire emotional life into the short, one hour time window of the typical therapy session may no longer need to be the required norm either. Telehealth offers an opportunity to restructure this relationship between the client and therapist by altering the setting and flow of communication. Maybe a patient responds better to a ten minute interaction every day than one longer session once a week. Telehealth expands the domain of client-therapist interactions, taking some of the pressure off the office appointment and distributing it more specifically. Mental health care with telehealth becomes more about the patient and less about conveince.

The most exciting aspect of bringing telehealth to mental care is the possibility of reaching those that have resisted the in-person model. According to the American Psychological Association, only a small fraction of Americans suffering from mental illness seek help because of stigma associated with mental illness in the culture. Debilitating mental illnesses such as clinical depression can impact a patient’s motivation to continue seeking help, or to even get out of bed. Social anxiety can make visiting unfamiliar settings or people, such as therapist offices or therapists, nerve-wracking or in some cases practically impossible. Telehealth software circumvents these inhibitions because a virtual appointment can serve as a more manageable and sustainable substitute for an in-person one, while bypassing some of the debilitations which might prevent the patient from reaching out for and continuings with help.

As healthcare leaps headlong into the digital age, it is only right that mental health follow suit. As an essentially communicative, relationship-driven practice, therapy is innately amenable to telehealth. New healthcare technologies that compliment the needs of millions of suffers of psychiatric disorders will only deepen and enrich the pursuit of wellness, in both body and mind.