E-mail Me, Tweet Me, Follow Me, Friend Me: Online Professional Networking Between Family Therapists

Abstract

Online networking is a growing way of connecting with others, both personally and professionally. The purpose of this survey study was to gain information regarding the online professional networking practices between family therapists. To do this, a survey was administered to family therapists across the United States inquiring about the frequency with which they interact with other professionals via various forms of online communications. Demographics were reported with regard to what methods family therapists used to communicate with other therapists and how frequently. General and feminist-based implications for professional engagement, training, and ethics are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• couple and family therapy technology
• electronic professionalism
• e-professionalism
• family therapy
• feminist family therapy
• marriage and family therapy
• online
• professional issues
• professional networking
• social networking

Notes

¹ There is no way to accurately gauge the response rate, given that it was not known how many people had access to the web posting. It is, however, known that 362 people began the survey and 227 completed the survey, resulting in a 62.7% completion rate.

² The participant total for age does not equate to the total number of participants, as not all participants shared this information.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This project was funded by the Alaska Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Parts of this manuscript were previously presented at the 2011 Alaska Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Annual Conference in Anchorage, Alaska, and at the 2014 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Annual Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.