Online Consultations

It is a fair question and it deserves evidence rather than reassurance. For the most common presentations — anxiety disorders, depression, stress, relationship difficulties — a substantial body of research finds online therapy achieves outcomes broadly comparable to in-person work. This has been examined repeatedly and the finding has held up.

There is a practical advantage too. The strongest predictor of whether therapy helps is whether you keep attending, and removing a ninety-minute round trip from a working week improves attendance considerably. A slightly less ideal format you actually sustain beats an ideal one you abandon after a month.

Where online is weaker: limited view of body language, dependence on connection quality, and the need for genuine privacy at your end — which not everyone has.

You book through the appointment form with a preferred date and time. You receive a confirmation by email, along with a secure video link for the session — there is no app to install and no account to create.

Join a few minutes early to settle. Sessions run 50 minutes. The first is largely orientation: what brought you here, relevant background, and what you want to be different. You will leave the first session with an initial sense of direction rather than a finished plan.

Afterwards, scheduling the next session is done by email. Most people begin weekly and move to fortnightly as things stabilise.

On my side: sessions are held on an encrypted platform, from a private room, with no recording of any session at any time. Notes are minimal and stored securely. Nothing is shared with family, employers, or anyone else, subject only to the standard risk-to-life exception.

On your side, privacy needs planning, and this is the part people underestimate. A room with a door, headphones so only your side is audible, and a time when the house is quiet. Clients in shared housing or joint families often schedule around when others are out — this is worth thinking through before booking rather than discovering mid-session.

If a fully private room is genuinely impossible, say so at the start. There are workable adaptations, including sessions from a parked car, which is more common than you might expect.

Online therapy is not appropriate in a psychiatric emergency, where there is active suicidal intent, for severe eating disorders needing medical monitoring, for acute psychosis, or where you are in immediate danger at home. In these situations you need in-person and often urgent care.

If you are in crisis right now, contact Tele-MANAS on 14416 — India's national mental health helpline, available free, around the clock, in multiple languages — or go to your nearest hospital emergency department.

If what you need falls outside what I can appropriately offer, I will tell you plainly and help you find the right service rather than taking you on.