ABSTRACT
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many therapists for the first time in their careers had to rely on Zoom and other confidential and safe online streaming systems to conduct their couple and family therapy sessions for the first time. However, as the author and many other therapists soon discovered, a virtual tele-health therapy context has many advantages to it. Clients tend to be much more relaxed being seen in their homes and open up about subjects that they may never have talked about with their therapists in their offices, such as painful traumatic events and losses. The level of intimacy in this therapeutic context is so high that clients often share with their therapists their pets, meaningful mementos, items they had made, and may even put on a musical performance for them. In this chapter, the author discusses a wide-range of ways therapists can use improvisational methods, idea-generating skill-building exercises and games, and therapeutic tools and strategies to help make virtual tele-health therapy sessions more upbeat and engaging with couples and families.
