If you're currently seeing a therapist online, when do you expect to go back to face to face work? (post-lockdown etc.)

[nordica]

Just that...

I'm paying for the therapy privately, not NHS.
He is talking about aiming to go back to face to face working from after Easter so around mid-April. It has been on Zoom all the way through from the first lockdown.

This feels way too early for me in terms of covid risk. I'm not in any risk group for covid as such but have been really careful all along. Being in a small room talking to someone for an hour feels like a high risk though - and usually there's only 10 minutes between clients too so the previous client's virus particles could still be in the air.

I also need to take two types of public transport to get there, for about 45 minutes on public transport in total.

I'm really worried I will lose my therapy at this point though because he is currently working on Zoom from home and I don't think it will be an option anymore if everyone else starts seeing him face to face (the consulting room is not at his home, it is in a building shared with other therapists - even more risk as more people around).

It would be really helpful to know if anyone else has had this conversation with their therapist yet? I don't know if I'm unreasonable not wanting to go back once the risk is lower in the spring. I'm in my late 30s so likely to not be vaccinated until the summer at the earliest. My therapist is a bit older though so I think he would get his first vaccine by Easter. Just feels like an unnecessary risk when it works ok online and could continue like that for another couple of months.

Mine says he will go back to normal when rates in his area of London drop to a safer level and when we come out of lockdown. And course rates in the clients area drop. At the moment he and I both live in two of the highest risk areas and both have CEV people in our families so neither of us are willing to risk it. We might wait until our family members have been vaccinated too.

He plans to keep seeing people online if they prefer it even after going back even though it wasn't something he did before so might be worth asking yours about that.

OP I think there's a really good chance your therapist will be happy to continue to see you via zoom if you're not comfortable meeting in person.

Feel pretty sure if you raise this with him you will be able to continue on zoom.

In fact this discussion/negotiation could shape up to be the source of a lot of interesting psychological work!

Thank you all. I hope it can continue online for a bit longer depending on the situation of course.

Earlier in December (before the new covid variant news) he was thinking it could have been as early as before Easter, that's out of the window now of course but it's moved to "after Easter" now. Just feels like another uncertain thing. We have talked about it, I guess I'm worried me not wanting to go in person will seem like another "symptom" of the problems I have in general (with relationships and people). As far as covid goes though I feel like if it wasn't considered safe to work in person in July or September last year, then it won't be in April or May... We'll see.