How to get started with text based therapy?

Perhaps you find it difficult to verbalize your innermost private thoughts on video, or it might be that you find that the flexibility text based therapy offers is a better fit for your lifestyle.
When you begin your mental health journey, it is a good idea to start by writing a bit about yourself, your situation and the things that you struggle with and what you have done in the past concerning that issue. Perhaps you have been in therapy before, or already seen some videos about it.

The text based therapy allows for the process to go on continually, when you text back and forth. The conversation with your Psychologist is asynchronous. This means that the Psychologist will answer your messages when he or she is online again and not later than 24 hours after.

It takes quite a bit of resources to have text based therapy due to the fact that it is only in a written format.

I would like to give you some inspiration and tips on how to get started with text based therapy in the best way possible:

Introduce yourself

In the beginning it is a good idea to describe yourself, your situation and your challenges, as well as the ways that you have previously dealt with it. In text based therapy it is generally a good idea to write longer and more elaborative messages. This helps your Psychologist to give you the help you need.

Schedule it in your calendar

Set aside time to text your Psychologist and act on the things that you are working on with him or her. It’s easy to think that we can just fit it in whenever, but the feedback put clients give us is that it really helps to actively make time to digest, proces and text the therapist on a regular basis.

It can take quite a lot of energy to be in a treatment process, and it is normal to experience a higher level of tiredness or exhaustion.

It is completely okay if you discover that the written format isn’t the best match for you. It is always possible to switch to the video-consultation or have both video-consultations and text based therapy.

The duration of the treatment will depend on your specific challenge, how long the problem has been present in your life, and how much it is affecting you and what the goal with the treatment is. So this is something that you talk about with your psychologist.