June 2025
As most of your already know, I moved to Western Australia a couple of years ago and yet I continue writing for The Nimbin Good Times, as I’ve done since March 2009. Why, you may ask? The reason is that as I’m mostly working online these days, it doesn’t matter where I live. I’m also still very much connected to the people of the Northern Rivers and consider your part of the world my second home. I lived there, after all, in Lismore, 14 years.
I returned to my home town of Perth for a few reasons, including the realization that I was missing my beloved Indian Ocean too much and I was getting home sick.
As the covid pandemic taught us therapists, counselling and doing hypnotherapy online works. In the case of the latter, after all, the hypno is done with the client lying down with their eyes shut and my voice drifting across the ether wherever you or I am. Computer technology is so sophisticated these days that we are generally very comfortable talking to the person at the other end as if we were all in the same room.
There are many therapists working exclusively online nowadays. I do see people in person here in Fremantle, where I’m living, as well as online. This is obviously only an option if you’re here in the West. For everybody else, it’s online therapy that I’m offering. I have clients, these days, spread across the whole of Australia, which is really quite nice. I advertise in Psychology Today, which, like most things these days, is predominantly an online journal.
I follow the lives and politics of what’s happening around Nimbin and surrounding areas as closely as I do back here. You matter to me. If you wish to contact me, the best way is by emailing dr_mccardell@yahoo.com
It’s interesting how readily we humans have taken to online communication. It doesn’t generally feel very odd at all. Online therapy, also called teletherapy, has been found to be just as effective as in person therapy. It’s better than doing sessions on the telephone as we are very visual creatures. We connect better with each other when we can see the other person.
Online therapy, and I use WhatsApp and Messenger usually, allows for great flexibility as clients don’t have to drive to a designated place. We can do it from the comfort of our own homes. This opens the way to good therapy for clients living outside towns and those who are disabled in some way. Time constraints are also more easily managed for online sessions.
There are downsides to online therapy and these include dodgy internet connections, difficulty making sure the sessions are private (you need, ideally, to have your living space to yourself for your sessions), incomplete visual clues (we therapists learn a lot about our clients through careful observation), and some psychological issues are not well cared for by this mode of communication. Severe psychiatric crises are best treated by somebody in person.
One thing that is as true for online therapy as in person therapy is the need for quiet contemplation before and after each session. Such time allows the person to reflect and prepare for what is to come and to make notes as felt necessary. You might follow up a session with a hot bath and lovely essential oils or sit down to a delicious meal or just head off to the garden. Prospects that don’t include car travel. Not bad, really. The important thing is that you don’t throw yourself into the rigors of work and stress straightaway but give yourself a bit of space around your therapeutic sessions.
Online therapy is a matter of personal choice. If you prefer in person sessions, then find a therapist for that; if online suits you best, and you’re interested in my work, contact me, please.
