Navigating changes in the physical and psychological spaces of psychotherapists during Covid-19: When home becomes the office.
Liat Shklarski, Allison Abrams, Elana Bakst
Abstract
The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 changed psychotherapists' personal and professional realities The necessity of delivering health care safely within the lockdown and shelter-in-place mandates compelled psychotherapists to shift their practices away from providing in-person services to offering synchronous remote psychotherapy instead This abrupt transition presented a unique and multifaceted challenge in terms of the service location;as therapists' houses effectively became their offices, their homes no longer served as purely personal spaces Instead, psychotherapists needed their living environments to fulfill a dual function as a clinical office space that would be shared with their clients, albeit at a distance This mixed-method study focused on assessing psychotherapists' most significant challenges and specific adaptations to this experience of providing remote therapy from home during the Covid-19 pandemic Findings from the study revealed that the shared trauma experienced as a result of the pandemic, the unexpected and sudden transition to the new therapeutic setting, and Zoom fatigue were among the most significant challenges faced by therapists The participants also demonstrated great resilience as they found creative ways to adapt and continue their meaningful work with their clients This was especially true for those working with children Ultimately, the participants had mixed feelings about the possibility of returning to the office setting (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Clinical Impact Statement: The Covid-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on the delivery of psychotherapy treatment This mixed-method study assessed psychotherapists' most significant challenges when conducting remote psychotherapy sessions from their homes The study's findings cover both the challenges and the strategies used to navigate them (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)