Home // eTELEMED 2025, The Seventeenth International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine // View article
Authors:
Eileen Wurst
Keywords: human-to-human interaction with technology; somatic psychology; telemental health; body scan meditation.
Abstract:
Having to transition to TeleMental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, psychotherapists were challenged to continue establishing therapeutic connections in their sessions within this new human computer interaction. In the in-person psychotherapy exchange, the clinician and client form a mutual connection that helps them to feel a sense of therapeutic presence and alliance together. This is known in somatic psychology as intercorporeality, a critical component of the therapeutic relationship that is suspected to be less accessible through digital environments. Motivated by the scarcity of existing literature correlating the relationships between TeleMental health, human-to-human interaction with technology, intercorporeality, therapeutic presence, working alliance, and interoceptive awareness, this paper examines relevant empirical studies and presents a design for a mixed-methods study to assist in advancing understanding of these constructs. The explicit aim is to explore how a body scan meditation effects interoceptive awareness, working alliance and sense of therapeutic presence for both therapist and client within the context of the human-to-human interaction with technology within a TeleMental health session.
Pages: 1 to 5
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025
Publication date: May 18, 2025
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-4359
ISBN: 978-1-68558-270-8
Location: Nice, France
Dates: from May 18, 2025 to May 22, 2025