The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has abruptly overwhelmed normal life. Beyond the fear and fatality of the virus itself comes a likely wave of psychiatric disorders. Simultaneously, social distancing has changed overnight how psychiatrists and other mental health professionals must treat patients. Telepsychotherapy, until now a promising but niche treatment, has suddenly become treatment as usual. This article briefly reviews the limited clinical evidence supporting different modes of telepsychotherapy, then focuses on how remote therapy affects clinicians and their patients.

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Volume 178
Issue 3

March 01, 2021
Pages 240-246

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Supported by grants from Stand for the Troops Foundation, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Fisher House Foundation, and Acorn Hill Foundation (principal investigator for all, Dr. Neria). The second author supervises a study of trauma-focused psychodynamic therapy in veterans with PTSD at the New York Harbor Healthcare Center, with funding support from Weill Cornell Clinical Translation Science Center (NIMH grant UL1-TR-002348), the American Psychoanalytic Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, and a Fund in the New York Community Trust established by DeWitt Wallace. Dr. Markowitz and Dr. Neria receive salary support from the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Heckman receives grant support from NIDA grant 1R21DA047893-01.

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History

Received 3 May 2020

Accepted 7 July 2020

Published online 25 September 2020

Published in print 1 March 2021

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Psychotherapy at a Distance

Abstract