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Oriana McGee, Psy.D., is a 2024 graduate of the PsyD Program in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University, Santa Barbara

Headshot of Dr. Oriana McGee

Dissertation Committee:

  • Elizabeth Bates Freed, PsyD, Chairperson
  • Stephen Southern, EdD
  • Julia Shaver, MD

Keywords

online survey, COVID-19 pandemic, teletherapy, stress, therapeutic relationship, self-care, nonverbal communication, Internet technology, teletherapy training and technological support

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

In March 2020, virtually overnight, in-person interactions shifted to online or other remote realms due to the governor of California's lock-down orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the need for mental health services including psychotherapy skyrocketed. Psychologists in California met this overwhelming demand by adapting to the challenges of the moment and embracing teletherapy, a relatively new mode of therapy for most practitioners at that time. Many studies were launched to capture real-time data about mental health workers' shift to providing remote and online services; however, most of these studies were focused on practitioners' experiences in June 2020 or later and did not look specifically at psychologists in the state of California and their experiences in March 2020. To address this gap in the literature, this research study looked into the effects on California psychologists of the rapid pivot from in-person to teletherapy in March 2020. Using an online survey, quantitative data and short answers were collected from 34 psychologists who practiced teletherapy in California at the start of the pandemic. Summary data showed that most psychologists were unprepared for the switch to teletherapy, practitioners faced unforeseen technological challenges (e.g., lack of training and technological support), and although most psychologists reported increased stress during this time, the majority reported satisfaction with their ability to help people reach their therapy goals via teletherapy, and the therapeutic alliance in their view was not affected by limitations in nonverbal communication. These findings supported those of previous studies in the literature; for example, Mittal et al.'s (2023) conclusion that many mental health providers demonstrated resilience and satisfaction with their work in the face of both negative and positive consequences of the rapid shift to teletherapy at the start of the pandemic. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

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ORCID Scholar ID #: 0009-0007-6375-970X

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