ABSTRACT

Therapists motivated by an ethical duty to serve have ventured into uncharted territory to bring help to patients who need it because of their circumstances, such as living in a remote area, having to travel for work, being immobilized at home, or leaving home for college. In teletherapy the setting chosen by the couple shows us their personal possessions, choice of art work, sounds of domestic life, and presence of pets, all of them in vivo grist for the teletherapeutic mill. Prospective patient couples in the thirty-five to forty-five-year-old demographic tend to find their therapists on the Internet. They find therapists in group practices advertising teletherapy on a global level, with choices of various in-house therapists. Ida and Greg sought couple teletherapy for their two-year marriage after two unsuccessful attempts at in-person couple therapy in office settings. Teletherapy may be a boon for some and a bizarre object for others.