Tips for Making the Most of your Video Counselling Sessions

1. Find a setting you’re comfortable with – it doesn’t have to be perfect. Where you go for your session doesn’t matter. Counselling sessions can be where ever you feel comfortable, in your office, loungeroom, kitchen breakfast bar, hotel room, or sitting in your car at a park or in your drive way.
   
2. It does have to be private. Like attending counselling at our office, knowing you can talk freely without being heard is most important.  You can ask people you live with to give you space by going for a walk or using noise cancelling headphones.  Likewise going to a private room in the house or sitting in a park or in your car can also give you the privacy you need. 
   
3. Free yourself from distractions. A quiet place will allow focus and space for reflection. Please silence your mobile or better yet, turn off your phone. If you’re using your phone for the therapy session then please ensure do not disturb is on.
   
4. Minimise background movements. Even a ceiling fan can wreak havoc for a camera as it continually tries to keep up with the movement.
   
5. Turn your selfie video off. Seeing yourself throughout the session can be a distraction as we naturally tend to monitor (consciously or subconsciously) what we look like LIVE. If possible, turn your selfie video off.
   
6. Use a big screen and a stable base where possible. A therapy session looking at a mobile screen will be effective but your eyes will feel more comfortable looking at a bigger image. Using a tablet or computer is recommended.  Place your laptop or phone on a hard surface at a comfortable viewing distance and it will help to keep the video stable.
   
7. Ensure your connection is stable. If your wifi is patchy then ensure you’re in the same room as the router. Make sure your house mates or family members aren’t streaming video services (like Netflix or YouTube) during your video session unless you know you have sufficient bandwidth to support plenty of streaming services at once. If you have a patchy connection and enough phone data then it might be better to use that in some circumstances.
   
8. Secure the connection. Hornsby Counselling and Psychology uses Coviu for video counselling which is compliant with the Australian standards for online security and encryption.  Knowing your connection is secure and encrypted can help you to relax.
   
9. Use headphones. Wearing headphones can make a significant difference to video-counselling. It feels more private, there is less feedback and you are able to hear more clearly.