Letters from Sarajevo

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Re: long-distance "conversations"

From: Judy Kuster
Date: 18 Oct 2005
Time: 10:30:12 -0500
Remote Name: 65.25.213.94

Comments

I asked ASHA's ethics person some of your questions a couple years ago, and his response was: // Is it therapy if we don't meet fact-to-face? yes Is it therapy if I'm not being paid for my services? yes // Is it therapy if it is helpful and we can show that with outcome measures? -- I didn't ask that one - but I would certainly answer yes to that one - I'd hope that we could show it was effective, and you've provided one way to do that. // >As you noted I thought it was a good idea to state that from my perspective I thought of our contact as correspondence rather than (traditional)therapy or counseling.< // Miodrag calls it therapy - "general. I wrote to Walt and we started a successful and rewarding correspondence, something as an email speech therapy," Another question I suppose is does the person one is corresponding with, consider it "therapy?" // Our organization hasn't figured out all the questions/answers about what the Internet has done to change provision of services. There are lots of questions that will continue to be discussed and raise more questions. But in my opinion, what you were doing in your conversations with Miodrag was professionally responsible and humanly generous. The problem with time commitment is a big one, and your suggestion that "Maybe there is a way to purchase portions of time on a web site manned by professional clinicians" is an interesting possibility. Another possibility is for professionals who are retiring/retired, to become a resource. It would be nice if a non-profit organization could get some grant funding to do something like that. // Thanks for providing an opportunity for me to do some more thinking about it. // Judy


Last changed: 10/24/05