Online Psychotherapy Just as Efficient as Conventional Therapy

(University of Zurich, July 30, 2013)

For the first time, clinical researchers from the University of Zurich provide scientific evidence of the equal value of internet-based psychotherapy. 62 patients with mild depression were treated with different established techniques that could be carried out both orally and in writing. Both therapy form helped about 50 percent of patients to overcome their depression, and the degree of satisfaction with the treatment and therapists was more or less equally high. In the medium term, online psychotherapy yielded even better results: Three months after completing the therapy, 57 percent of patients from online therapy were depression-free, compared to 42 percent with conventional therapy. One of the reasons for the success of online therapy could be that online patients said that they had re-read the correspondence with their therapist from time to time.