Clinicians Digest July/Aug 2008 - Page 3


Webber didn't embrace the new communications technology eagerly. After 36 years of counseling and teaching students, she began to get a sense of diminishing effectiveness in her sessions with them. One evening, while watching her teenage son simultaneously checking Facebook, surfing the net, sending e-mails, and doing homework, she suddenly got it: for today's kids, asking them to sit in a therapist's office with nothing to do except talk directly to someone and be fully present for 50 minutes was like forcing them to communicate in a foreign language. To genuinely communicate, she realized, she had to begin using the tools of their native communication, like text messaging, e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, and podcasts.

Whereas some other therapists might think they're in the vanguard because they occasionally ask kids about their Facebook page, Webber uses electronic media to communicate with kids between sessions. They're used to communicating when they want to communicate, she says, not on a therapist's office schedule, and they feel freer to talk using their own preferred communication. She's joined the digital generation by setting up her own Facebook page, and now several kids who aren't her clients have invited her on- to their pages. This expands her network—not for marketing, but for tuning in to her clients' community. It isn't spying, she says, because everyone knows she's there.

Webber creates podcasts and CDs for clients to use between sessions, which help them practice therapy homework. The electronic communication flows two ways: kids sometimes post videos on YouTube—their own and others' sites—about what they're feeling and send her the links. While some therapists might see between-session e-mails and Facebook exchanges as blurring the boundaries of therapy, Webber points out that she doesn't engage in idle conversation. She's present in the kids' digital world as a therapist.

Mascari and Webber's advice to therapists: don't let anxiety and lack of know-how keep you from going digital. After all, if you want to do therapy, you have to speak your clients' language. The new communication may feel awkward and, yes, everyone will know you have an accent. But kids will appreciate your effort so much that they'll be eager to teach you.

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