Implementation of Telemental Health in Brazil: Lessons Learned from a Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

The rapid advancement of technology has changed how mental health treatment is provided and has quickly become an important approach for treating clients. Despite extensive literature demonstrating the benefits of telemental health, Brazil has been a country that has been slow to adopt this modality, with very little research or work having been done in that arena prior to COVID-19. In fact, Brazil was one of the few countries that had legislation controlling the use of telemental health for psychological treatment. With the global pandemic, Brazilian psychologists were forced to adopt this modality, with little if any training, and little if anything is known about their experiences in effectively utilizing this modality to meet the needs of their clients. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore more in-depth psychologists’ experience of providing telemental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five main themes were identified, including 1) Developing Therapeutic Relationships, 2) Setting, 3) Provider Online Bias, 4) Provider’s Positive Experiences and 5) Skills Providers Need to Develop, Finally, clinical implications and future research is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Therapy
• clinical
• telemental health
• COVID-19
• psychologist

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research came from the Scientific Initiation Fund at CESUCA University Center.