What is the disinhibition effect?

Are you a counsellor or trainee?

If so, this blog is for you.

As a fellow counsellor, I thought I would take some time to reflect on online counselling and disinhibition. This blog explores how and why email counselling is the most powerful when it comes to the disinhibition effect.

Learn more about how email counselling works in my FREE guide here.

Firstly, what does disinhibition even mean?

The Oxford Learner's Dictionary definition of 'disinhibition' is:

'the state of no longer feeling shy so that you can relax and show your feelings'

Wow. Wouldn't that be amazing if our clients could relax and feel less shy about exploring their true feelings? The reality, though, which I'm sure you will have observed, is that it is very common for clients to feel very anxious and shy about being so open in counselling.

This is because they are inhibited.

Many of our clients feel self-conscious and overwhelmed when they first meet us. Think back to the first time you ever saw a counsellor and tell me you weren’t a little scared. The reason it can feel scary is because we are entering a professional space and feel very vulnerable when talking to a complete stranger.

In person counselling

This inhibition is so much stronger when meeting clients in person as we are expecting them to travel to, and enter, our therapy room. Even though we don’t want there to be a power dynamic it is much harder for the client to relax in this space.

Video call counselling

Moving to video call counselling – which I know many counsellors have done since the pandemic started – you probably noticed how much more open your clients were able to be. This is because they felt disinhibition due to meeting you from their own computer, from the comfort of their own home.

Do you notice how the clients you meet online these days are more likely to feel able to fidget and have a cup of tea? Perhaps it doesn’t feel so rule driven for them. Not that boundaries are not important in online counselling – they are – but our clients tend to feel more able to relax in the space quicker.

Email counselling

What happens when we change the way we meet our clients to email sessions?

With email counselling the disinhibition deepens further.

Many people are more comfortable exploring topics – such as those relating to sex, for example – that might feel too embarrassing to discuss out loud.

Why?

Learn more about how email counselling works in my FREE guide here.

Find out more and continue reading the rest of this blog over at my sister website Email Counselling Academy here.

​Email Counselling Academy (founded by me!) offers specialist email counselling training for professional counsellors ready to take their career to the next level.

More info here: emailcounsellingacademy.com