What Traits Does Teletherapy Require?
Teletherapy is an enriching career for the right kind of person. The benefits are many, and the satisfaction will continue to grow when it is the right fit. Alternatively, teletherapy isn’t necessarily for everyone. You need to be very honest with yourself if this is what you are considering. Below are 7 essential traits that every SLP so inclined should possess.
1. Adaptable
Online therapy will require you think on your feet and improvise if necessary. Let’s say that a particular exercise or game just isn’t engaging the child. You will need to draw upon your trove of skills and approaches to salvage the session. Sometimes teletherapy will demand this even more than face to face due to the inherent challenge of not being in the same room as the child.
2. Communicator
Obviously, if you are teaching communication skills, you will need to be an excellent communicator yourself. What may be less apparent is that as an SLP you will be part of a team that may include teachers, other therapists, and a caseworker. Your ability to communicate with them openly and efficiently may be the difference between success and failure with the child.
3. Compassionate
Perhaps the essential quality of a therapist be it someone who is involved in teletherapy or not, is the a genuine desire to help the child. Lacking this compassion and sincere concern, the critical bonding will probably not occur between the child and therapist. What’s more many of your clients may come from families who have experienced stressful situations. Empathy and compassion are a must!
4. Listener
A corollary to being an excellent communicator is a good listener. If you want to help this child, you need to listen carefully to what she is saying in response to your directives. An added benefit of being attuned to the child is that you will be able to accomplish far more in less time as potential misunderstandings and conflicts will never even occur.
5. Organized
Unfortunately, remote therapy like many other clinical occupations brings along its share of paperwork. While you may think that some unnecessary if you don’t have access to the information that you need when you need it, there will be problems. So being organized, on time, and up to date with your paperwork is key to success.
6. Persistent
Those practicing teletherapy will tell you that being persistent is crucial. At times your caseload or particular clients will be challenging, but the surest guarantee to failure does not see it through. You need the grit to see the situation to the end, and you will find that many times you will be pleasantly surprised by the result.
7. Sensitive
A sister trait to being compassionate is sensitive. Since at the heart of most of your clients’ problems is difficulty in communicating, you will often need to be sensitive and intuit the client’s needs. And of-of course aside from this therapeutic benefit is the importance of connecting with the client which probably won’t happen with a therapist who isn’t sensitive.
