Therapy Through a Screen: Why Online Counselling Doesn't Have to Be Less Experiential
What if online therapy didn't have to mean sitting in front of a screen and talking for an hour?
When people think about online counselling, I suspect this is what many of us picture.
Two faces on a screen.
A conversation.
Perhaps a cup of tea somewhere nearby.
And that can absolutely be part of online therapy.
But I've never really liked the idea that the screen has to become the boundary of what we can do together.
Because one of the things I love about the way I work is that sometimes talking about something isn't quite the same as experiencing it.
And that doesn't suddenly change because we're meeting online.
Bringing the therapy room to you
In my face-to-face practice, you might notice that my therapy room contains rather more than two chairs.
There are objects.
Paper.
Rope.
A cardboard suitcase.
A finger trap.
Sensory things.
Visual metaphors.
Sometimes things that probably look slightly random until I explain what I have in mind.
The props aren't the therapy.
They're simply tools that can help us experience something differently.
Because sometimes a metaphor makes something click in a way that another twenty minutes of talking about it doesn't.
Sometimes physically doing something helps us notice a pattern that we've been intellectually aware of for years.
And sometimes experiencing something in the moment gives us an opportunity to practise responding differently.
So I started thinking:
Why should that disappear just because we're working online?
The online prop pack
This is where my little online therapy prop packs came from.
Rather than expecting online sessions to be entirely screen-based, I can send you a small collection of simple objects to have alongside you.
Nothing particularly fancy.
Nothing that needs a degree in arts and crafts.
Just carefully chosen things that can become part of the work we're doing together.
And the interesting thing is that you don't necessarily know what we're going to do with them before we start.
That's part of the point.
We might use something to explore avoidance.
Something might help us look at the way your mind responds when difficult thoughts show up.
We might physically represent something you've been carrying.
We might explore what happens when you pull against something.
Or hold onto something tightly.
Or try very hard to make something disappear.
Or perhaps we'll do something completely different.
The object itself isn't important.
What it helps us notice is.
Experiential doesn't mean doing something for the sake of it
I want to be quite clear about this.
I'm not interested in making therapy "fun" for the sake of being different.
And I'm definitely not going to suddenly produce a box of craft supplies and announce that we're going to make a collage of your childhood trauma.
There is a purpose behind using experiential work.
Sometimes we can understand a pattern incredibly well and still find ourselves doing exactly the same thing.
We can know that reassurance-seeking keeps anxiety going.
We can know that avoiding something makes our world smaller.
We can know that trying to control every thought our mind produces is exhausting.
We can know all of this...
...and still find ourselves doing it.
Because knowing something intellectually doesn't automatically mean we know how to respond differently when we're actually in the situation.
That's where experiential work can become interesting.
It gives us a chance to move from:
"I understand what I do."
towards:
"I'm noticing what I do while it's happening."
And then perhaps:
"What happens if I try something different?"
The screen doesn't have to stop us moving
One of the reasons I love Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is that it isn't simply about understanding our thoughts and feelings.
It's interested in what happens next.
What do we do when anxiety appears?
What happens when shame shows up?
What does our mind tell us?
What do we do to get away from uncomfortable feelings?
And where does all of that take us?
Sometimes the work is about noticing.
Sometimes it is about making room for something difficult.
Sometimes it is about stepping back from the story our mind is telling us.
And sometimes it is about actually practising a different response.
That can happen in a therapy room.
It can happen sitting at your kitchen table.
It can happen with a screen between us.
And it can happen with a little collection of objects sitting beside you.
The physical room may be different.
But the work doesn't have to become smaller.
There can be something quite powerful about having the objects in your own space
There is another reason I like the idea of the online prop pack.
The things we use aren't left behind in my therapy room.
They're with you.
On your table.
In your room.
Perhaps tucked away somewhere afterwards.
And that means the experience isn't entirely contained within the hour we spend together.
You can look at one of the objects later and remember something we explored.
You might notice yourself responding to a difficult thought in a familiar way and remember the exercise we did.
You might pick something up and think:
Ah. There it is again.
That doesn't mean the object has magical therapeutic powers.
It doesn't.
The prop is simply an anchor.
A reminder.
A way of connecting something we explored together with your life outside the session.
And yes, sometimes therapy can be a little bit unconventional
I know my way of working isn't for everyone.
Some people will absolutely prefer sitting in two chairs and talking.
And that's completely okay.
Sometimes talking is exactly what we need.
But I also know that some people have spent years talking about the same things.
They understand themselves incredibly well.
They know their patterns.
They know where those patterns came from.
And yet they still feel stuck.
Sometimes what is needed isn't more information.
Sometimes it is an opportunity to experience something differently.
To notice.
To experiment.
To practise.
To discover that perhaps there is another way of responding.
And sometimes that might involve a cardboard suitcase.
Or a finger trap.
Or a piece of rope.
Or something that initially makes you think:
"What on earth are we doing?"
And honestly, I'm quite comfortable with that.
Online doesn't have to mean less human
Perhaps this is the thing I most want to challenge.
Online counselling can sometimes feel as though we're trying to recreate a therapy room through a webcam.
But I don't think we need to do that.
We can acknowledge that online work is different.
And then make use of what that difference offers.
You are in your own environment.
You have your own space around you.
You can have your prop pack beside you.
We can use objects, movement, imagery, writing and sensory experiences alongside conversation.
And we can still have the thing that matters most to me:
a real human being sitting with another real human being, exploring what is happening and finding a little more room to choose what happens next.
The screen is simply how we get there.
So, what's actually in the prop pack?
I'm deliberately not going to give you a full inventory here.
Partly because some of the objects are more useful when they arrive without a long explanation attached to them.
And partly because I rather like the idea that you might open the package and wonder what on earth I've sent you.
What matters isn't the collection of objects itself.
It's what we can do with them.
How they help us make something visible.
How they help us notice a pattern.
How they give us something to experiment with.
And how we can take what we discover back into ordinary life.
Because ultimately, props aren't the point.
The therapy isn't even the point.
The point is what becomes possible when you have a little more awareness, a little more flexibility and a little more choice about how you respond to your life.
If online counselling feels like it might suit you...
You don't need to be particularly "good at therapy".
You don't need to know exactly what you want to talk about.
And you certainly don't need to be comfortable staring at a webcam and talking about your deepest feelings for an hour.
We can start wherever you are.
Sometimes we'll talk.
Sometimes we'll pause.
Sometimes we'll notice something happening in the moment.
And sometimes I might ask you to pick something up.
Because therapy can happen through a screen without becoming just a conversation through a screen.
And perhaps that's one of the things I love most about working this way.
The therapy room doesn't have to be limited by the four walls of the therapy room.
I offer online counselling across the UK, alongside face-to-face counselling from my practice in central Grimsby.
If you'd like to find out whether my way of working might be right for you, you're welcome to book a free Introduction Call.
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