Research has yielded many questions as to w hat type of therapy is best for the customer overall. In this aspect, the first question to answer during the research has been. What level of satisfaction ratings will individuals who engage in the E-therapy modality offer for the services provided with the use of the E-therapy modality process?
Prior to the research it was hypothesized that the individuals who seek therapeutic services and engage in a therapeutic environment using the E-therapy modality will have a higher level of satisfaction with the services provided than those who use only a face-to-face modality or a combination of E-therapy and face-to-face modalities. In this it is understood that many people who are involved in therapy have a grasp on the reality of what they are needing help with. For those who are involved in face-to-face therapy there are many concerns with how they are looked at and with how they are treated by the therapist.
In the data that was collected by survey there were a lot of participants who felt that they were satisfied with the results of their E-therapy. These participants ranged in age, were both male and female and represented a variety of racial and cultural backgrounds. There were very few participants who were unsatisfied with their results from their E-therapy experiences. There were a total of fifty six participants who took the survey about their experiences with E-therapy only. Of those fifty six only eight reported being indifferent or mildly dissatisfied, while seventeen were mostly satisfied and thirty one were very satisfied.
In the chart the following symbols are representative of satisfaction with the services: VS—very satisfied, MS—mostly satisfied, I/MD—indifferent/mildly dissatisfied, and QD—quite dissatisfied. This is represented in the following chart: What can be noted from the chart is that it is apparent that the vast majority of the customers who were getting E-therapy only were happy with their results and what they were receiving in relationship to their overall therapeutic needs. One can note that there were no participants who were quite dissatisfied with their services through E-therapy only.
Through other research and articles on the subject of E-therapy one can learn that the reason that E-therapy is so successful is that there is so much information in regards to the participant being able to choose his/her preferred modality, meaning that the participant can choose whether to receive correspondence through e-mail, type chat or even video chat. This can offer the participant reassurance and help in ways that are not available in the traditional constrains of therapy.
Also it seems that issues can be dealt with more quickly without the interference and non-verbal or verbal cues and therefore the sessions seem to be more productive for both the therapist and the participant. These factors would all influence this high satisfaction rating that participants had in this study (Grohol 2001). Furthermore the participants were unable to leave their homes for a variety of reasons and since this therapy was available to come to them they knew that they could follow through whereas they might not have been able to follow through had the therapy been in another format.
There were many other questions that research was supposed to answer. What level of satisfaction ratings will individuals who engage in face-to-face therapeutic modality offer for the services provided with the use of the face-to-face therapeutic process modality? The hypothetical answer was that individuals who seek therapeutic services and engage in a therapeutic environment using the face-to-face therapeutic modality will have a lower level of satisfaction with the services provided than those using an E-therapy modality and a combination of E-therapy and face-to-face modalities.
Through the research it was discovered that the hypothesized answer was correct and that those who were involved in face-to-face therapy were not as satisfied as those who were involved in E-therapy. There was a much higher occurrence of people who were not satisfied with the therapy that was provided to them through the face-to-face modality and therefore there were also less participants who were very satisfied with their services. There were a total of fifty one participants in this survey.
There were only seven participants who rated their experience as very satisfying. While there were twenty five who rated the experience as being mostly satisfied, fourteen who were indifferent/mildly dissatisfied and five who were quite dissatisfied. The results are represented in the following chart: There have been many problems that have been referred to when looking at face-to-face therapy. In one book that is used as a practical guide when teaching therapy there are many things that were looked at as problems.
The first problem that was identified by the authors was the problem with intelligence. This book proposes that anyone who has below average to low average intelligence is unable to comprehend the needs necessary for therapy and therefore therapy is not as beneficial to them as it is to those who have average to above average intelligence (p. 192). Another problem can be found when the clinician tries to become friends with the participant in therapy.
This relationship can take bounds and turn into something that is unhealthy for both parties (pp. 192-193). Another reason that people who are involved in traditional therapy are not happy is because they feel that being helpless is induced upon them. This is that there are problems with those who are performing therapy trying to make the participant feel worse about themselves or have more problems. This is a common occurrence in therapy and something that many who are unhappy with therapy talk about (p. 193).
Some other problems that occur in therapy that can cause there to be unsatisfactory results from the participants are when the therapist acts in inappropriate ways and there are many ways that the participant can act inappropriately (Watkins 1997 p. 193). The following chart looks at the percentages with both E-therapy and Face-to-Face modalities to show a comparison of how the participants felt. As can be told on the chart above, there research proved the hypothesis that stated that the participants would not be as highly satisfied with face-to-face modalities as they would be with the E-therapy modality.
The second part of this hypothesis that those who were participating in a mixed modality of both E-therapy and face-to-face therapy would be more satisfied than those who were participating in the face-to-face modality alone will be further explored in charts later. In relation to last statement the next question was promoting discussion of satisfaction of participants who were participating in both face-to-face and E-therapy modalities.
What level of satisfaction ratings will individuals who engage in a combination of face-to-face and E-therapy modality offer for the services provided with the use of combined therapeutic process modalities? It was hypothesized that individuals who seek therapeutic services and engage in a therapeutic environment using a combination of e-therapy and face-to-face therapy modality will have a lower level of satisfaction with the services provided than those who use only E-therapy modality but a higher level of satisfaction than those use only a face-to-face modality.
This hypothesized answer seemed to be representative of the results that were formulated. However the results on this issue might not have been the best as there was not a lot of representation. In finding participants who had experience with a combination of E-therapy and face-to-face therapy there were six participants who were surveyed. From these six participants four were mostly satisfied, one was indifferent/mildly dissatisfied and one had declined to answer. Thus the following chart is representative of the results.
Another chart that would be representative of the results is the following chart that shows the three different modalities that were surveyed and how each of them was observed by the participant in a percentage format. From looking at this chart it can be noted that both the second and third hypothesis statements were correct and that customers were more satisfied when receiving E-therapy than any other modality of services. It can also be shown that those who participated in both E-therapy and Face-to-Face therapy were more satisfied than those who just participated in Face-to-Face therapy.
It can also be noted that the only form of therapy to have quite dissatisfied participants was that of the face-to-face modality. Therefore from the research that was studied prior to conducting this research it was obvious that the overall favored form of therapy would be E-therapy. Many of the reasons that E-therapy can be preferred is the feeling that the participant is in complete control. This means that the participant is in control of all that is going on and that the participant is able to participate in the processes that are controlling the problems on some level.
Some other reasons are that these therapies are looked at with favoritism above others is that there are benefits to the process of E-therapy for those who do not want to leave their home, for those who live in rural areas and for those who are trying to be able to manage on their own. As for other reasons that participants might not like face to face therapy are the perceptions of being seen at the therapists office and having to travel to see the therapist.
There are those who would like to argue about the validity of computer based counseling services as well but for those who are participating in these computer based therapy services the benefits can be seen (Haley 2001). The next question that the research was set out to answer was “What, if any, gender differences will be present? ” The hypothesized answer was that males and females will differ on levels of satisfaction. This is meaning that there would be a difference in satisfaction based on the gender as well when looking into the areas that were being studied.
The results show that when looking at E-therapy there were a total of 41 females and 15 males. The results showed that there were 53. 7% of females who very satisfied with E-therapy while there were 60% of males who were very satisfied. There were also 29. 7% of females who were mostly satisfied and 33. 3% of males and just 17. 1% of females who were indifferent/mildly dissatisfied while there were just 6. 7% of males who felt this way. The results show that E-therapy seemed to be more positive for males than females. These results are shown in the following chart.
For results of face-to-face therapeutic modality and the differences between males and females were a lot of differences. The main differences were in the mostly satisfied and indifferent/mildly dissatisfied as well. For the males the results were 12. 5% very satisfied, 12. 5% mostly satisfied, 50% indifferent/mildly dissatisfied, and 25% quite dissatisfied. For the females there were 14% who were very satisfied, 55. 8% who were mostly satisfied, 23. 3% who were indifferent/mildly dissatisfied and 7% who were quite dissatisfied. This is represented in the following chart.
As for the results of the data collected for the mixed modality of both E-therapy and face-to-face therapy there were no males that were participants in this study so therefore there is no way to correlate the differences between males and females in this area. There are many differences and many relative relationships between the three modalities of therapy that are being studied, thus the next question becomes relevant. How does the satisfaction with the three specified modalities, e-therapy, face-to-face therapy, and a combination of e-therapy and face-to-face therapy, correlate with each other?
The hypothesized answer was that there will be a positive correlation between the satisfaction levels and the three specified therapeutic modalities. When looking at the results it is obvious that there are problems. There are all types of problems and all types of issues that are involved and as for the issues of satisfaction there are definite relations between the various types of things that are related to the types of therapy and the satisfaction rates. As hypothesized earlier those participants who were involved in the E-therapy modality were more satisfied than those involved in other modalities.
Those who were involved in face-to-face therapy were the least satisfied participants and those who were involved with both face-to-face and E-therapy were more satisfied than those who were involved in face-to-face therapy alone and were less satisfied than those who were involved in only E-therapy. Another question that was relative towards these things was: How does the satisfaction with the three specified modalities, e-therapy, face-to-face therapy, and a combination of e-therapy and face-to-face therapy, correlate with each other?
The hypothesized answer to this question was that there would be no difference in satisfaction levels of those who engage in e-therapy modality as compared to those who engage in a traditional face-to-face therapeutic modality or a combination of e-therapy and face-to-face therapy will be present. Thus the information that was collected and utilized proved that there were differences in the levels of satisfaction and therefore this hypothesized answer was not correct.