There is a whole series of reservations about online counseling: alongside data protection questions, technology often counts as the biggest hurdle. And since "online counseling" in the German-speaking world often means counseling via e-mail or chat, many feel that the crucial aspect of interpersonal communication, the client's gestures and facial expressions, but also the coach's, gets lost.
We at coachingspace.net are convinced that the online coaching market will keep growing after Covid and establish itself long term, both as a replacement for and a complement to in-person counseling. But: for this to succeed, and for online counseling not to be seen as a mere stopgap in times of social distancing, four conditions must in our eyes be met:
Client and consultant must feel secure during the coaching. For that, the servers must be located in Germany and the transmission must be privacy-compliant and encrypted.
The beloved methods of the in-person setting (such as the constellation board, the Inner Team and so on) must exist in the digital setting. More than that: they should not be a "cheap knock-off" but, on the contrary, exploit the possibilities of the digital world and create real added value.
For that reason alone, professional online counseling cannot remain reduced to chats or e-mails in the long run. It needs a virtual room, similar to a consulting or practice room, where client and consultant meet online and where both immediately feel at ease.
And finally, coaches and consultants should be trained to use this added value adequately and to handle the particularities of the online setting (such as the two-dimensionality and the resulting reduction of information).
Points 1 to 3 are what we cover with coachingspace.net. For point 4, we cooperate with experts in the further training of online consultants, for example with super.vision.
We are eager to not only professionalize the online coaching market together with you, but to revolutionize it. Are you?
Step into your own coachingspace today, free of charge and without obligation!
Meanwhile, we keep busily building in the background and look forward to your feedback: which coaching tools may we digitize for you next? Let us know in the comments.
