The aim of this thesis is to establish the experience and views of the users and experts of technology-assisted distance counselling in Slovenia. Technology-assisted counselling is psychosocial help and support at a distance, which means that the user and the therapist are not in the same room and that their communication is technology-mediated. Thus, psychosocial help and support is accessible to those who for various reasons cannot attend face-to-face counselling sessions. Moreover, users have a wider selection of psychosocial service providers, so they are able to choose the kind of help and support that suits their needs, wishes and capabilities the most.
In the theoretical part of this work various professions of psychosocial help and support, their importance and need in today’s society and in the future are defined. This is followed by a description of differences between face-to-face counselling and distance counselling, and a detailed presentation of technology-assisted counselling. The impact of Covid-19 on psychosocial help and support is also described.
The empirical part of this work presents the findings of the research, which I conducted to establish the experience and views of the users and experts of technology-assisted distance counselling in Slovenia. I collected the data with two research devices: an online questionnaire for users and a directive interview for experts. The research has shown that users decide for technology-assisted distance counselling mainly because it is easily accessible and time-convenient. Experts support distance counselling; however, they still stress the importance of face-to-face counselling, especially for long-term cooperation, like psychotherapy, that must be carried out in person. Both users and experts claim that even if online counselling was a good solution during the lockdown, they would like to go back to face-to-face counselling if this was their practice before the pandemic. Therefore, the prerequisite for successful cooperation is users and experts having the possibility to choose between online counselling and face-to-face counselling.
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