Distance Writing: Helping without Seeing Participants

Abstract

An interactive SH approach that is becoming more and more frequent and that has been always important is distance writing (DW). Online therapy has already emerged in the area of SH therapy as the fastest growing method, as discussed in Chapter 5 of this volume (L'Abate, 1986, 1990, 1992e, 2001a, 2002). Participants can receive therapy sessions with e-text and/or voice with video and can also com-plete online questionnaires, handouts, workout sheets, or practice exercises at their own pace (Greg, 2007). DW, as a progressive step in the evolution of SH, owes its phenomenal growth to the Internet and is now an everyday occurrence (Lange et al., 1993; Ritterband et al., 2003a; Ritterband et al., 2003b; Watkins & Clum, 2008). Information about help of any kind, and how to get it, is now at the fingertips of almost anyone who can write using a computer. Now even the phone can take over many functions of the computer. Information and help is continuously exchanged through SH groups, chat-rooms, formal and informal, structured and unstructured treatments in health promotion, prevention of illness, psychotherapy, and rehabili-tation. The use of the Internet implies an interactive involvement in the process of acquiring and exchanging information. To retain such information and incorporate it in one's daily living that information needs to be in writing, either in printed form for reception or in one's handwriting or typing for recording reactions and responses. If the Internet is indeed the most revolutionary development in the last generation, it will require reception and printing of written information to remember and express that information to keep records and documentation. With the Internet, DW is progressively entering the SH/MH field as the major medium of intervention and service delivery in this century, especially with the use of online communications (Lepore & Smyth, 2002; Pulier et al., 2007; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005) and the increased use of homework assignments in promotion, prevention, psychotherapy, and rehabilitation (Kazantzis & L'Abate, 2007), as discussed in Chapter 2 of this volume. Instructions for most homework assignments must be administered through writing to qualify as easily replicable procedures without the expensive presence of a professional and F2F talk. The Internet has produced the creation of " Electronic Tribes " of single-minded indi-viduals connected online around a mutual interest or topic, making virtual reality a second reality of its own with its own dangers, including white-collar crime,