ABSTRACT
Using the example of the author’s work with her client “Sara”, this chapter explores a range of factors that integrative arts psychotherapists need to consider when working with clients online. From the initial assessment of a client’s suitability for remote therapy, through contracting and documentation, and into risk assessment, integrative arts psychotherapists will find the basic information they need when beginning, or continuing, to meet with clients via a video platform. Suggestions are offered to help the therapist think about matters such as beginning and ending online sessions and the viewing and storage of client artwork. The reader is introduced to the concept of online disinhibition, and how it may impact the therapeutic frame and process. Holding the therapeutic relationship as centrally important, the author considers a range of strategies to help the integrative arts psychotherapist work in relational depth despite the technological, logistical, and clinical challenges presented by working online. The author concludes that digitally mediated therapy can amplify themes of presence/absence, connection/disconnection, openness/concealment, and flow/interruption and that these can form part of the challenge – and the rewards – of practising integrative arts psychotherapy online.
