The Bear Minimum

For people who need help, but live far from city centres, there’s work arounds that can help.

When technology first started to allow for teleconferencing at an affordable rate, it was something I immediately thought of for use in my work. Sure there are a lot of advice services online, but few of them allow for the practising psychologist to build a rapport with the patient.

When internet, video, and audio conferencing first became widely available, I let it be known amongst my colleagues that I would be open to working with some people via this technology, and of course that information was also filtered out to GPs who were looking for solutions for patients who were going through some psychological issue, especially those that weren’t likely to be long-term, as with post-natal depression or trauma after an accident of some sort.

The clinic I work at also put in an IP office phone system that was business grade, so that cost of conferencing would be greatly reduced making it more feasible for these sorts of sessions to occur. I also felt like it was a big thumbs up for what I was doing, and the service has worked well in the past.

I mentioned some time back my helping a woman who had suffered from extreme agoraphobia, well she’s one of the patients I’ve helped without her having to leave her home, to start with anyway, and after many, many sessions, and with a great deal of courage from her, she’s been able to largely move past her phobia, and accompanied her husband earlier this year on his life-long desired trip, to Egypt.

They had a great time with the tour, and the tour staff were very thoughtful when it came to helping my patient and being understanding with her when her phobia would flare; It’s nice to hear of such things, isn’t it?