Read

January/February 2008 Spirituality
The Healing Computer:
e-Therapists Offer Online Counseling

by Vicky Thompson

Max Fabry

Max Fabry, an advanced addiction counselor based in Eugene, offers her services worldwide through the Internet. She spoke with New Connexion about how technology is changing therapy for grief and loss.

Q. Online counseling seems to be the wave of the future.

A. I had some Internet clients that I had been communicating with, one in Australia and one in England. Then one of my clients I have been seeing here moved to Alaska. I found that this is really starting to happen on the Internet - people trying to access e-therapy.

I do my counseling through LifestyleChangesCounseling.com. In putting up my website, I found out that no one is policing e-therapists. Anybody could put a website up and say "I'm a therapist." I founded OnlineWellnessAssociation.com so that we can build a safe platform for practitioners to offer their services and also for the public to be able to access those services. Professionals have to become members of OnlineWellnessAssociation.com and agree to a background check, a credential check and provide four recent professional references. We do the background checks through a third party. Members get our seal of approval on their website.

Q: How does online counseling work?

A:  There are several ways and it depends on how comfortable the client is using the computer and where the client is located. For my client in London, we're both hooked up to webcams and you can talk right through your computer. I'm able see her and she is able to see me. For my client down in Australia, we do email instead of webcam because he doesn't have that available where he lives. I notice with my male clients that they are very comfortable writing emails and having me respond to them.

Q: Do you think it is helpful for some people to get their feelings out more when they have a chance to compose their thoughts in an email?

A: Research shows that e-therapy is very effective. When emailing or Internet communication started back in the early '80s, we found that people tended to write more when they were sitting down at their computer. I noticed with my clients that they tend to talk more about feelings by email than they would sitting right in front of me. It seems to come a lot freer and easier for them. There are so many social groups and social communities on the computer that the generations that are coming up access their services through the computer. I have a client that lives in the northwest corner of Colorado where there is nothing. And she looks forward to our sessions because she is so isolated.

Q: You have an interesting story about how you awakened to become an addiction counselor.

A: I went back to school after the age of 40. I had gone to Penn State when I was younger and then I took a sabbatical to save the world - the whole '60s thing. So I returned and discovered qualitative research at the University of Oregon. When I applied for the bachelor's degree, they told me that I had earned an alcohol and drug counseling certificate, and I didn't even know what that meant. Then I broke my arm and because I do natural healing, I was in bed for three months to let my arm heal. The first day I got in bed I said, "Okay God, there's something that you want me to do, so I am going to lay right here and heal until I know what I am supposed to be doing." What I was supposed to be doing was counseling.

Q: How did that spiritual experience help you to create your workshops?

A: As a part of this, I have volunteered for the Red Cross for the past 40 years. I was on the disaster action team for floods and fires. Unfortunately, I was also there when Sept. 11 happened. My job was in family services, so I had to go to the homes of people who had lost someone in the towers or actually escaped. I interviewed them to find out what needs they had. I got to observe how people were grieving. I realized there is no pathway to grieve and that most Americans don't know how to grieve. When I returned, I began reading and writing about grief and loss, and how to move on from there.

Q: It sounds like grief and loss could apply to many things in life.

A: Losing someone you love or a friend or even your neighbor - that is an obvious loss. The two other losses in America are divorce and moving. We tend to move a lot. There is loss when all the children leave the home. There is loss for people with addictions: giving up their alcohol and drugs, the friends connected with using the drugs and the rituals that go along with using the drugs. There are many different types of losses, even the loss of your keys. If you are not recognizing the major losses in your life, then one simple new loss, like losing your keys, can put you over the edge.

Q: You offer three parts in the Moving On workshop: grief and loss, transitions and Plan B.

A: Grief and loss is only the first step. Because when you are out of the fog, what do you do? The second part is on the transition process, where we need to sit in the neutral zone. I talk a lot about the need to look at and learn the lessons before you move on to a new beginning. And then there is the new beginning where I talk about Plan B, where B means to be. Instead of wondering aimlessly into a new beginning and floundering, I talk about people needing to set a plan or roadmap.

I had a woman that was in an abusive relationship and it was very difficult for me to help her through the fog and seeing she had to move on. We did a Plan B: If you weren't in this relationship, how would you want your life to be? We did an enormous plan where we looked at where she lived, budgets and jobs, social life and recreation. I told her you can leave at any time because you do have an option and within three weeks, she was out of the abusive relationship by her choice, which was very empowering to her.

Visit www.lifestylechangescounseling.com and www.onlinewellnessassociation.com.