Computer aided technologies are used by the trained professional counselors and individuals seeking counseling services to communicate rather than conventional face-to-face interactions.
Some clients are using videoconferencing, live chat and email services with a mental health professional in place of or in addition to face-to-face meetings.
Afterward, Martha Ainsworth wanted to reach the general public with her experiences and founded a clearinghouse for mental health websites, named Metanoia.
[5] According to metanoia.org, the first service to offer online mental healthcare was "Ask Uncle Ezra", created by staff of Cornell University in 1986 for students.
[7] Between 1994 and 2002, a group of trained volunteer crisis counselors called "Samaritans", began providing suicide prevention services via email.
[24] J. Suler suggests that people functioning at a particularly high level, and who are well-educated and are artistically inclined, may benefit the most from using text-based online counseling to as a complement to ongoing psychotherapy.
[25] Severe situations, such as suicidal ideation or a psychotic episode, might be better served by traditional face-to-face methods,[26] although further research may prove otherwise.
This makes certain resources more readily available to the patient in the form of self-monitoring, self-improvement courses, treatment and care management, and data collection of personal trends and symptoms.
This tool helps track factors associated with treatment plans including, mood, personal log data, and diary entries.
[13] In addition to this transition, the pandemic and associated quarantine caused many people to become anxious and depressed, which resulted in an increased demand for mental health services.