In the Internet age, counseling has a new look. I’ve counseled people over Skype as far away as Tanzania, New Zealand, and Cambodia, and as close as ten miles from my office.
Advantages of Internet Counseling
Here are a few groups groups who access biblical counseling over the Internet:
- People in remote areas
- People without access to biblical counseling in their area, such as a ranch in the middle of Montana
- The home-bound
- Mothers of very young children
- Counselees in dicey weather (thunderstorms, snow storms) who usually come in the office
Excerpts from Plugged In
My friend Marie Notcheva (who also is listed on Heart2Heart Counselor Directory here on my site) interviewed me for her book Plugged In: Proclaiming Christ in the Internet Age (Pure Water Press) and shared some of my stories of counseling in the Internet age in her book. She wrote:
Lucy has done premarital counseling with a Hong Kong real-estate heiress, counseled a former gang member in the a U.S. city, and helped numerous women around the world walk more closely with God.
CONVENIENCE. “It’s convenient, and the Internet has opened doors to many people in nations without access to biblical counseling,” she points out. She has counseled women in Cambodia, Sweden, the UK, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia, as well as the US.
WORKING WITH A LOCAL CHURCH. One dramatic turn-around happened in the life of a West Coast woman and mom of three small children, who had to flee from an abusive husband. “Julie” had heard about Lucy through a mutual friend. Lucy first heard Julie’s cry for help over the phone. Soon they began regular telephone counseling sessions.
“We had a lot of good conversations, in which I was able to get a lot of details about the abuse from her husband,” Lucy notes. In an emergency situation, Julie reached a point where she had to take the children and flee the home. She went to the Midwest, where she had family, and commenced Skype counseling with Lucy while getting involved in a local church.
The combination of online counseling and involvement in a local church was what greatly aided Julie in applying the Scriptures to her life – and turning it around.
ANONYMITY. Lucy tells the story of “Beth,” a young woman who joined a Chicago gang for a sense of belonging. Following a horrific gang initiation (essentially gang-rape), unimaginable violence and sexual abuse followed. Beth would point the camera down, at her feet when she divulged these details to Lucy. Her shame was so great that she would not show her face, even through a computer monitor. At the same time, however, Beth desperately wanted someone to hear her story – and talking to Lucy in this way was the only way to get it out.
At the time, she could not tell anyone at her church. The subject was so sensitive that it demanded distance, until Beth was able to work through the issues of neglect and sin that had affected her childhood and adolescence. Beth now attends a gospel-preaching church and has grown greatly there. “I see this as a ‘graduation’ of sorts—seeing counselees plugged into a church body,” Lucy says.
For more on using technology, see Marie’s book, Plugged In: Proclaiming Christ in the Internet Age (Pure Water Press).
An Opportunity for You
Would you like to know more about counseling with me by Skype? Please send me a message. I offer a free confidential consultation so you can ask questions and share concerns.
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
