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What is “е-therapy”?
The word е-therapy is short for electronic therapy. It is so-called due to the main characteristics of this form of psychological consultation on the matters of psychic health, namely that the meeting between the consultant and the client is effected by electronic means, in the virtual office of cyber space. The electronic means of communication used in this case are the е-mail correspondence, on-line chat, video-sessions on the Internet, and telephone consultation. The common feature for all of them is that they are carried out from a distance and the therapist and client never meet face to face, unless the client so wishes. The only difference is that in the case of e-mail correspondence there is a time-delayed answer (asynchronic communication), whereas the chat-sessions and telephone consultations occur in a real time and hour (synchronic communication). Announcing the possibility for on-line consultation is always accompanied by the explicit stipulation that e-therapy is not just a new type of psychotherapy, but a complementary psychotherapeutic working method supplementing the traditional ones, addressing the people who for one reason or another cannot afford a visit to the psycho-therapeutic consulting-office.