COVID-19 e Telepsychotherapy: Which Variables Affect Therapeutic Experience?

COVID-19 pandemic forced a widespread adoption of telemedicine, including telepsychotherapy. Telepsychotherapy has been proven to be effective before COVID-19 breakout (Poletti et al., 2020); however, both patients and therapists were skeptical about this modality. The aim of this study is to probe the experience of telepsychotherapy in both patients and therapists, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Thus, when the adoption of online colloquia was mandatory and not an option. Crucially, studying the experience of telepsychotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic allows i) investigating also the experience of those patients and therapists that were not favorable to this kind of intervention and ii) comparing the experience of therapy in the online and face-to-face modality, in the same patients and therapists. Furthermore, we collect several psychological variables that possibly influence the experience and efficacy of telepsychotherapy (e.g., personality traits, attachment state of mind, previous traumatic experiences) to define the psychological profile behind a favorable or negative experience of telemedicine in both patients and therapists. As crucial novelty, this information is collected in both patients and their therapists, allowing the direct comparisons between the experience of the therapeutic relationship (e.g., empathy, alliance) from two different point of views. The results of the present study may help in the definition of possible subgroups of patients who may be sufficiently responsive to telepsychotherapy and those who may benefit - exclusively - of face-to-face interventions.