View from a Teletherapist During Covid-19

March 11th was the day my office went dark. 

The wooden cube calendar on my desk remains fixed on the date, like a monument to the day we all went into hiding from a common enemy: Covid-19.  My office had been the place where my clients became comfortable and trusting, a cocoon-like space where they shared their deepest thoughts and feelings with me.  As I was thrust into a virtual office, I wondered if that same connection would be possible.  I wondered if the therapeutic bond with existing clients would weaken and if new clients would be able to form one at all.  

I have often wished I could take a picture of each client in their virtual space and make a collage that would unite us in this experience and document this memory for myself.  Of course, I cannot.  Images of them in their bedrooms, backyards, bathrooms, or front seats of their cars rather than on my office couch will remain with me forever.  The computer screen turned bright and their faces appeared.  We looked into each other’s eyes and began. It has been messy:  I have watched them struggle with children running in and out of the room, deliveries arriving at the wrong time, and no strong WiFi signal in the parking spot outside their homes. They have lost people.  They have been furloughed.  And they have worried about the impact on their children.  Our 50 minutes together have been the one weekly constant in a sea of change. 

The new clients who had never met me in person before were more curious about my environment as they peered from their screens:  “Is that a dog I hear?”  “Is that office in your home?”  “Do you live by yourself?”  I realized that teletherapy began with a built-in distance:  We see each other, but only a part of the picture framed by the computer screen.  I don’t see the total you and you don’t see the total me.  With a few new clients, I found that this distance made them feel safer to reveal more sensitive issues sooner than I’d expected.  I wondered how they would feel later, when they saw me in person, and the real physical presence of each other lifted the buffer between me and the deepest secrets they shared. 

One day the pandemic will be behind us and things will return to normal.  Or will they?  It is anyone’s guess.  In my practice, I am always reminded of the resilience of people.   How quickly we adapt to change even when it’s thrust upon us.   For now, I am seeing many clients virtually and some in the office.  The building that houses my office is empty of people, save a few accounting employees upstairs and the janitor, normally chatty, who waves hello to me from a distance in his surgical mask.  My clients text me when they are outside and wait for my “all clear” to enter the lobby.  They trickle in with their masks and hand sanitizer, looking like refugees relieved to come back.