The meteoric development of computer and information technologies in the past two decades changed the lives of people all over the world. There is no need to go to the Post Office in order to send a letter. To receive Information - there is no need to visit a library. Even University education is available online. People purchase cameras, computers, and vacations by a click. Video chats and video conferences became an everyday experience.
The hope was that technology will allow people to have a lot of spare time for leisure, and to take care of themselves. Paradoxically, as so many operations became easier - the pace of life became faster, people became busier, and spare time became even more scarce and precious than before. These two factors – enabling technologies on one hand, and scarcity of spare time on the other - influenced the field of Mental Health.
With the new technologies, people can save not only time and money on preparations, travel and parking, they can also choose their Psychiatrist or Psychotherapist from any point on the Globe, and receive therapy without leaving their room or their office, without having to move out of their comfy chair. On the other hand they are free to get the same service in a coffee shop, during a vacation on the beach front, or while waiting for a transit flight in the airport.
What is most important is that online therapy is not only a time and money saver, but it can actually be deeper, much more goal directed and thus - more effective, bringing the results in a shorter time.
Let see the ways mental care can be delivered online:
Psychotherapy and Consultation via email
A person, writing his thoughts, feelings, pains and conflicts is much more concentrated then when in a face to face conversation. He can reread what he wrote after a while; go back to his previous letters and to the letters received from his therapist. He is not confined by the time to the "therapeutic hour". He can write down his thoughts and feelings the moment when they appear. This way the "therapeutic hour" can be divided, extended indefinitely or "replayed" after a week, a month or in several years.
Psychotherapy via e-mail breaks not only the space barrier but also the time barrier.
The possibility to reflect, on thoughts, beliefs, feelings from time perspective, enriches a person's inner world, and develops qualities that enable him to solve his problems and live life more effectively.
Rereading client's letters, a therapist can also find hidden meanings, which he did not discover on the first reading.
A Psychotherapist that is not confined by the "therapeutic hour" has the opportunity to contemplate on his reply letter, to formulate it in a way, that serves the client's needs best.
Online Psychotherapy and consultation best serves very busy people, whose job demands a lot of traveling, people suffering from severe pain or movement disability, and just anyone who understands the advantages of formulating their thoughts and feelings in a written manner.
Psychotherapy via e-mail can be combined with meetings via Skype or meetings in the therapist's office.
Therapy via e-mail can be in addition to, but not instead of office visits, in cases of Severe Depression, Acute Psychosis, Suicidal thoughts and ideation.
Secrecy and confidentiality in on-line therapy are as strict as those in office setting.
Psychotherapy and Consultation via Skype
Therapy over Skype, or any other video chat service, in the same manner as therapy via e-mail, has no geographical borders. Both save time on preparations, travel and parking.
On Skype, a client and therapist can see and hear each other in real time. The therapeutic session on Skype has to be arranged in advance and scheduled in the same manner as a clinic an office visit.
Psychotherapy via Skype can be combined with clinic visits and correspondence via e-mail.
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For about two decades Dr. Roitman is answering questions of readers in local and central newspapers on different areas of mental health, human relationships and sexuality.
Most Q&A's are written in Hebrew, some in Russian. All Q&A's can be found in the Hebrew and Russian parts of this Site. Gradually they will be translated to English.
All texts on this Site, including Q&A's are interactive. It is possible to comment on any text on this Site, including Q&A's, or to ask your own questions. No data about the asker is published.
It is possible to contact Dr. Roitman through a contact Button, through a "Leave a comment" button, or directly through the e-mail:
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In treatment of all kind of psychiatric and psychological conditions we use wide range of therapeutic tools:
- Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
- Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy
- Drug treatment
- Hypnotherapy
- Couple therapy
- Couple sex therapy
- Sex therapy with a surrogate partner
- We provide professional opinion for court, social security, ministry of defense, and others
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In Hasharon Institute the approach to each patient is integrative: Special attention is given to the personal development and goals.
We deal with improvement of interpersonal and romantic skills, team work and management abilities. We train people to keep their inner equilibrium in times of success and failure. We help them "survive" separation and job loss. People learn to mobilize themselves in times of financial crisis and in situations of life-treating danger, such as war, terrorist attacks, rocket shelling.
In Hasharon Institute we diagnose and treat states of depression and anxiety, different phobias, conditions after physical and mental trauma, psychoses of different origin, sexual dysfunction in men and women, psychosomatic disorders.
- Anxiety and Depression
- Schizophrenia
- Bipolar Disorder
- Organic Psychoses
- Personality Disorders
- Psychosomatic Disorders
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Sexual Disorders
- Middle Age problems and conditions
- Old Age problems and conditions
- Smoking Cessation
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About 1% of the world population suffers from this severe mental illness. Schizophrenia can appear in different forms, each one with its own symptoms. The most common are: auditory hallucinations, delusions of persecution or influence, disorganized behavior, loss of interest and motivation, severe disturbances in most fields of life.
Schizophrenia usually starts in adolescence or early adulthood. This is a chronic illness, which requires constant psychiatric follow up and medication to achieve a long remission. Remission allows social and professional rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation of sexual functioning in a chronic mental health patient
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Approximately since the age of nineteen, I begin to write my own thoughts, observations and conclusions about myself, the world around me, people I had met. Those observations helped me navigate my life in the stormy sea of my own adolescence and early adulthood.
Unfortunately all of my notebooks were confiscated by customs officials when I was leaving the Soviet Union in 1974 with my family. To this day I mourn the loss of those notebooks. For about five years thereafter, I was unable to write at all. I felt like a part of me was taken away with the confiscation of those diaries. Around 1979 I started writing again. This need to write my thoughts and contemplations reappeared, and remains with me till this very day.
I never know when and why I will write a particular thought, but when I have the feeling, that it is of a value for me, usually I write it down. Some thoughts can wake me up at night; others can come while I am listening to music, traveling in a train, airplane or just walking down the street, during a lecture, or while reading a book or a journal. Sometimes thoughts appear when I'm considering some relationship or crisis with other people. Feelings of success or failure often bring observations, which can be important to me.
Today, when I reed my diaries, even many years after they had been written, I still find some thoughts interesting and important to me. I decided to share some of them with readers of my site, in hope that it can be interesting to some, may be stir their own thoughts, associations, and understandings.
The Site is interactive. Comments discussions and reactions are welcome, to any text that is published on this Site.
At this stage, I upload materials to this site in the languages, which they were written originally. Because the thoughts originally were written for my own use, most of them are written in Russian, which is my primary language. Some are written in Hebrew and some in English. I hope to translate them gradually.
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