Why Thrive will keep doing telehealth for the time being

As I sit alone in my office, as I have for months now during the Covid19 pandemic, I have thought a lot about Thrive’s options going forward in terms of how to provide the best care for our clients and community. I have debated with myself about the idea of reopening for in person sessions and talked with my team at length about it. I have felt sad even at the lack of activity in an office that I designed and decorated to be a safe space for both our clients and our team.

The decisions that business owners are having to make in light of the pandemic are truly challenging for all of us. While I do not have any right to comment on what any other office is doing, nor am I interested in doing so, it is my job at Thrive to lead us in the best way possible right now for our team, our clients, and our greater community.

As such, we are not planning to reopen our office to in person sessions anytime soon. So, I thought I would write a blog post to share more with our readers as to why we have come to this conclusion.

• First and foremost, we want to protect our clients and prioritize our relationships with our clients. Many people, and therapists, would prefer to have more in person contact right now. I completely understand that desire and feel that way myself. However, I feel such a strong responsibility to our clients at Thrive that I do not want to take the risk that someone would be exposed to this at times very dangerous illness at our office. I personally would not want to live with the guilt I would feel about that and also feel it is my ethical responsibility to protect our clients from having to make the choice about in person or telehealth sessions. For now, I will make the hard choice to keep us in the “telehealth only plan” until the data suggests another approach would work and protect our clients.
• We can do our jobs and support our clients remotely while others can’t. Our team has been thrilled with how our clients are responding to telehealth and have adjusted to meeting in this way. We were concerned about how we would all adjust and now that we are pretty much managing well, it makes sense to continue particularly because some people are not able to do their jobs remotely. We would hate for our clients to have to choose between coming to see us and another person they need to see in person. By making the choice for our office to stay virtual, they can see both of us and limit exposure.
• We believe in limiting our exposure to other people in order to control the spread of Covid19. Particularly since the virus seems to spread best indoors in small spaces over prolonged exposure, it makes sense to reduce our exposure to other people. In a small office like ours, it would be difficult to guarantee distance and we would prefer for our clients to be comfortable during our sessions rather than worried about how many other people have breathed the same air or sat in their spots on the couch that day/week. As therapists, we work hard to cultivate a safe space for our clients. Unfortunately, being in close proximity to others who don’t live with us does not feel safe at this time and would most likely hinder the therapeutic relationships we have worked hard to build.
• We don’t believe we can control the choices anyone else is making and want to reduce the impact of community spread. ​As therapists, it is not our job to judge what others are doing with their lives and how they are making their choices. If we invited people back to our office it would be hard to mitigate the reactions we might have when others are making choices we are not ready for. And vice versa. For example, I have chosen to send my son back to daycare so that we can go back to working more normal hours. My clients might not feel comfortable with this and might not want to be exposed to those germs and have every right to feel that way. While we are all in this together, it is preferable in the interest of our relationships with our clients not to be sharing the same germs to avoid negative impacts on those relationships.
• We want to be a consistent form of support. The adjustment to working remotely was definitely a challenge for all of us. Now that most of us are finding some level of comfort and rhythm in this new routine, I would hate to have our team and our clients adjust to working in person only to have to move to remote sessions and adjust all over again. We would rather be a consistent form of support our clients appreciate while the world feels so unmanageable and ever-changing.
• Our licensing boards and professional associations still recommend that we continue with telehealth. While Thrive is multidisciplinary in our team, our boards and professional associations are all in agreement with the premise that we should continue with telehealth for now unless there are extremely compelling reasons to return to in person sessions. In our field, it is important that we follow the standard of care for our clients’ best interests.
• The data does not support us reopening. Unfortunately, Covid19 cases are increasing and as such, it seems prudent to wait until a time when cases have decreased and we can provide some level of safety for in person sessions.

We appreciate our clients so much and their willingness to hang in there with us during this difficult time. I know that it is not easy to follow all of the social distancing guidelines and maintain our mental health, both collectively and individually. If our office staying closed allows you to see a close friend or family member with less risk, I’m happy to have helped in this way. For those who are struggling with telehealth sessions and are wanting to jump right back in, please know that I care about you as well and that we will do our best to make that decision to work together in person when it makes sense and we can guarantee that you (and your loved ones) are safe with us.