A Look at the Teletherapy Industry
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people around the world have been turning to psychotherapy and various mental health medications to improve their overall wellness. The pandemic has been stressful, but that’s not all. Lockdowns, quarantines, and other safety measures have also meant that more people are suffering from isolation, symptoms of depression, and anxiety disorders.
Fortunately, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals have joined medical doctors in using technology in order to meet client needs. Whether it’s prescribing medication for serious mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, or even schizophrenia, or holding psychotherapy sessions over video chat and phone calls, it’s been a journey to find alternate routes for helping clients with their mental health struggles. Let’s take a deep dive into what the teletherapy industry is like for psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals.
Various Professions Within the Mental Health Sector
If you’re interested in seeing a therapist, it’s important to know that there are different types of mental health services you can opt for. In fact, there’s a big difference between psychologist and psychiatrist. For example, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can both provide therapy sessions and prescribe medication for treating mental illnesses. If you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or an anxiety disorder, you’ll be seeing a psychiatrist because that person will have attended medical school and can provide clinical help, on top of talking through the challenges you’re experiencing.
A psychologist has not attended a medical school, but they usually have a doctoral degree or master’s degree in psychotherapy. The mental health services provided by a psychologist is likely talk therapy, although there are psychologists who use techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Psychologists and psychiatrists alike can perform psychological tests and analyses in order to better understand the needs of their clients. Both psychologists and psychiatrists have used secure platforms during the pandemic in order to keep caller information secure while performing mental health services over alternate routes, like a phone call or video chat. This practice is known as teletherapy.
Using Call Center Software to Ensure Client Privacy and Safety
Whether your counselor is an M.D. or a Doctor of Psychology, you want to make sure that anything you tell them is confidential, as do they. This wish to ensure the security of clients, without compromising the counseling provided, has led many psychiatrists and psychologists to look into call center software pricing. Call center software has made advancements in leaps and bounds in the past few years, and it’s now ideal for managing the teletherapy needs of the modern age.
If a client needs to contact a psychologist or psychiatrist during off-hours, for example, call center agents can still provide assistance, because call center software means that you’re never offline. Call center solutions also mean that clients can contact agents or medical professionals over the channel of their choice, whether that’s SMS, live chat, a phone call, or an email. All the client data, call histories, phone numbers, medical conditions, and more are stored and collated, available at the counselors’ fingertips on their dashboard. That being said, all this information is still kept completely secure. No one ever has to be without medication because they couldn’t reach their psychiatrist for a refill anymore with contact center software, which has made it such a great option for those practicing teletherapy.
The worlds of psychotherapy and psychiatry may have changed in the modern age, but they’re not unrecognizable. Ultimately, counseling is counseling’s there to help you through the rougher times. The only difference is that tech is helping streamline the process.