Telehealth Certification Institute

Therapists occasionally receive requests from prospective clients looking for faith-based or spiritually integrated counseling. Good therapists might know that they are sensitive to a client’s faith and that they can help them, yet they will often refer the client to a therapist who provides a specific faith-informed therapy. There are two good reasons to do this. First, it is important to provide the client with the best fit for what they are seeking. Second, spiritually integrated therapy truly is a specialization requiring a particular set of competencies and supervised experience.  

However, finding a fitting therapist for the client can often be a significant challenge. Conducting a search for a local one, whom the referring therapist has vetted, may yield little to no results. When well-trained, spiritually integrated providers offer teletherapy, this can overcome the search obstacle. Many faith-informed therapists have not begun to provide teletherapy; the thought of launching a telehealth program can feel overwhelming for any provider. Some faith-informed therapists and organizations have successfully faced this task by partnering with people who provide the proper training and support.

In this video, our CEO, Raymond Barrett, interviews Michelle Inauen, LPC MFT, who provides counseling by both video and phone.  Michelle Inauen shares how she got started in distance counseling and the services she offers to individuals, couples, and families.  Michelle also provides some advice to other clinicians looking to get started in providing virtual counseling. 

Finding the right therapist for yourself or someone else can be challenging for anyone.  However, finding a psychotherapist for someone who is living abroad can be even more difficult.  To help provide some guidance with this task, our CEO, Raymond Barrett, interviewed Josh Sandoz, LMHC, who is the curator of the International Therapist Directory.

In June of 2018, I provided a two-part (two-day) training on TeleMental Health at the University of North Florida as part of a grant project called CMHC CONNECT (Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Creating Opportunities Needed in North Florida for Educating Counselors through Technology). The project was funded by the Humana Foundation and held in partnership with UNF. According to the university’s follow-up summary, they “contracted with Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC to provide TeleMental Health Training for CMHC students and mental health providers with comprehensive information on the establishment and provision of TeleMental Health services to clients.

This week Raymond Barrett, CEO of Telehealth Certification Institute, had the opportunity to interview Lisa Wozniak, a professional marketing consultant and the founder/owner of Woz Marketing, which according to their website (Link) is “a social media marketing company dedicated to serving the needs of small business owners and medical professionals.” The full video of their conversation can be found below.

In this interview with Dr. Douglas Weiss, Ph.D., we discuss the impact that using technology has had on clients, the importance of being appropriately trained when providing treatment for sex addiction, and the way his specialty practice works in conjunction with other counselors who provide care for other conditions such as anxiety or depression.

Virtual counselors provide an array of online therapy options that include couples counseling, online marriage counseling, and online Christian counseling, to name just a few. Online therapists use a variety of mediums to communicate and "meet" with clients, providing the same standard of care as a traditional practice.

Link to Podcast

Ray Barrett of Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC recently appeared as a guest on the Mental Health News Radio Network podcast with Kristin Sunanta Walker to discuss the various aspects of telemental health services and the changes that have occurred over the years.