In my experience, it isn’t. And I say that having worked both ways for a number of years, with people who came to online therapy reluctantly and left it without any intention of switching.

What the research says

The evidence base for online therapy has grown considerably over the past decade, accelerated significantly by the period when in-person work wasn’t possible for anyone. What it consistently shows is that online therapy produces outcomes comparable to in-person therapy across a wide range of presentations - anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship difficulties, and more.

That finding tends to surprise people who assume the research would favour in-person work. It surprised some therapists too. But it reflects something that practitioners who work online have observed for a long time - that the therapeutic relationship, which is what most of the evidence identifies as the primary driver of change, can be built just as effectively through a screen as across a room.

What changes and what doesn’t

It would be dishonest to suggest that online therapy is identical to in-person work. Some things are different.

The physical co-presence of being in a room together isn’t there. For some people and some presentations, that matters. There’s a particular quality to sitting with someone in the same space - a kind of somatic attunement that isn’t fully replicated through video. For most people, most of the time, this doesn’t significantly affect the work. For some it does, and it’s worth knowing that.

Practical things change too. The commute disappears, which for some people removes a significant barrier. The transition into and out of a session is different - you’re in your own space rather than a neutral one, which has its own qualities, both useful and occasionally challenging. Some people find it easier to access difficult material when they’re in familiar surroundings. Others find the lack of clear separation between therapy and the rest of their day harder to manage.

What doesn’t change is the relationship itself - the attention, the consistency, the experience of being genuinely heard and worked with over time. That’s what tends to do most of the work, and it travels through screens as well as it travels across rooms.

Why online can actually lower the barrier to starting

For a lot of people, the practical obstacles to in-person therapy are real. The distance, the time, the difficulty of fitting an appointment into a working day, the anxiety about being seen going into a therapy building, the simple fact of not living near a therapist whose approach feels right. Online therapy removes most of these.

That matters, because one of the most consistent things I observe is that the people who most need support are often the ones who find it hardest to seek. The threshold for asking for help is already high, and anything that raises it further - a journey, a waiting room, a particular kind of visibility - can be the thing that keeps someone from starting at all.

Online therapy lowers that threshold. People often begin sooner than they would have otherwise, and beginning sooner tends to mean the work is less complicated and the distance back to feeling well is shorter. That’s not a small thing.

What online EFT looks like specifically

EFT lends itself particularly well to online work, which people sometimes find surprising given that it involves physical tapping. The tapping is done by the person themselves - on their own face and hands - which means there’s no physical contact required between practitioner and client. The session looks very similar online to how it looks in person. The conversation, the identification of what’s being worked on, the tapping sequence, the tracking of what shifts - all of this translates directly.

Many people find online EFT easier to settle into than they expected. Being in their own space, with whatever makes them feel comfortable around them, can actually create a sense of safety that supports the work rather than detracting from it.

On choosing what’s right for you

The question isn’t really whether online therapy can work - the evidence is clear that it can, and my experience confirms it. The more useful question is whether it’s right for you, given your particular circumstances and what you’re coming with.

If you’re someone who has never tried therapy and the online option is what makes it feel possible to begin, that’s a good enough reason to begin that way. The work that happens online is real work. The relationship that develops is a real relationship. And the changes that come from it are real changes.

If you’ve been putting off looking for a therapist because in-person feels complicated right now, online is worth considering not as a compromise but as a genuinely viable option in its own right.

If you’d like to explore what online therapy might look like for you, I’d be glad to chat. I offer online EFT, and online counselling - and I’m happy to answer questions before you decide anything. You can get in tough here.