Telepsychiatry: Way of the Future

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FROM OUR READERS

This article is a response to the article “Putting an Unhappy Face on Telepsychiatry” by Elizabeth Varas, MD.

I welcome the opportunity to reply to Elizabeth Varas, MD’s response to my article, “Psychodynamic Psychiatry After the Pandemic.”

On the one hand, I fully agree with Dr Varas that something is lost when we are not meeting in the same room with our patients.

On the other hand, I believe that the convenience factor, both for psychiatrist and patient, the reduced frequency of no-shows, and the proven effectiveness of online treatment, makes it a valuable alternative to meeting in person, if both parties agree to do so. I do not think that I have become more “absent, bored, or drowsy” than when I was meeting with my patients in person almost 3 years ago.

As I stated in my article, however, I think that telepsychiatry will increasingly be the way of the future, especially with younger generations of patients and therapists, along with continued advances in technology.

Dr Perman is clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Reference

1. Fink B. Phone analysis: variations on the psychoanalytic situation. Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique: A Lacanian Approach for Practitioners. W.W. Norton and Company; 2007:189-205.