When Therapy Goes Online: Keeping Connection Alive through AEDP

What is it about?

This article explores how therapy can stay emotionally deep and effective when it moves online, especially during times of crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors focus on using Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) to meet the emotional and relational challenges of teletherapy. The pandemic created a “shared traumatic reality,” where both therapists and clients were affected by the same global crisis. This situation led to anxiety, uncertainty, and a disruption of the usual therapeutic setting. To address these difficulties, the article offers practical tools and ideas based on AEDP—an approach that emphasizes emotional connection, secure attachment, and healing through authentic experience. It explains how therapists can recreate a warm, affirming presence online, helping clients feel seen, safe, and cared for—even on screen. This approach directs the client's attention inward and utilizes various methods to undo the client’s sense of aloneness. The article includes a moving case example that shows how one therapist helped a client reconnect and explore old wounds, despite being physically apart. In short, the article provides both a theoretical model and practical guidance for therapists who want to make online therapy feel as real, safe, and transformative as in-person work.

Featured Image

Photo by Bhargav Panchal on Unsplash

Photo by Bhargav Panchal on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article is valuable because it shows how therapists can adapt to teletherapy without losing the intimacy, safety, and emotional power that make therapy effective— In regular, peaceful times, as well as during times of collective crisis.