During the COVID-19 pandemic, therapists pivoted quickly to providing on-line, remote psychotherapy to patients, using a variety of software programs and systems. Many therapists were offered exemption from various rules in order to make these transitions easier. Many of those exemptions have now expired, including the relaxation of requirements to use software and devices that are compliant with state and federal confidentiality. But many therapists learned the convenience and economic benefits of offering full remote practices, where they saved themselves the cost of having a professional office space.
Unfortunately, this leaves many therapists providing remote psychotherapy from a space in their personal home. In my opinion, this is risky, and potentially problematic for therapy. During the pandemic, all bets were off. We worked with what we had available. I saw patients who sat in their cars in their driveways, where they could still connect to Wi-Fi at their house, but they had some privacy from their family.
There were times I was seeing patients while sitting in my backyard, while my wife was doing remote teaching from our living room, and our children were doing remote schooling from the kitchen table. We did what we had to do, amidst........