How to Become a Cyber Counselor
It seems like you can do just about anything online these days, but cyber counseling--also called eTherapy--is relatively new. A cyber counselor is usually a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist who provides therapeutic guidance to patients via the Internet. It provides a sense of anonymity that sometimes facilitates healing better than face-to-face communication, and if you enjoy helping people, cyber counseling might be the career path for you.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Psychology or psychiatry degree
- Understanding of computers and technology
Instructions
-
Getting an Education
-
1
Determine what type of counseling you would like to pursue in your career. Some therapists work exclusively in drug and alcohol addiction, while others focus on couples therapy or post-traumatic stress.
-
2
Obtain an undergraduate degree in psychology, psychiatry or counseling. This will prepare you for working with people, analyzing mental health issues and handling the business side of cyber counseling.
-
-
3
Pursue a graduate degree in your chosen field. Most cyber counselors have at least a Masters degree, while many go to medical school so they can work with all types of patients.
-
4
Learn as much as you can about computers and technology. Cyber counseling requires that you work on a computer for a large portion of the day, sometimes chatting with clients, while also doing administrative work. You should understand how two-way communication programs work, such as instant messengers, and you should know a great deal about Internet etiquette.
-
5
Take courses in cyber counseling to better prepare yourself for this career choice. You might find classes given by current cyber counselors, or through psychiatric associations in your area.
Establishing Your Practice
-
6
Understand that cyber counseling is relatively new. Until you can establish a client base, you might need to offer other types of in-person therapy before you can exclusively move to electronic counseling.
-
7
Establish an Internet office for your practice. Cyber counseling requires that you commit yourself entirely to Internet business. This means setting up a website to serve as your Internet office, and advertising your services online. You can even use websites like Online Clinics (see Resources below) to help bolster your practice.
-
8
Choose a method through which you can counsel your patients. Although you can use standard instant message services, such as Yahoo! or MSN, it is usually better to choose a more secure option. Services such as Online Institute, LLC, offer private chat options that guarantee security.
-
9
Determine how much you will charge for your services, and how clients should pay for your time. To ensure complete anonymity, it might be easiest to use PayPal or a similar website for payment or you can set up your own merchant account.
-
10
Attract new clients by publishing articles and other useful tools about cyber counseling on your website. This will serve both to educate your prospective clients about the process, and to expand your patient list.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Publish your education and credentials where prospective patients can easily find them.
Work only with clients who live in your country at first to avoid default payments.
Resources
- Photo Credit sxc.hu/speedy2
