Télépsychothérapie et COVID-long, une indication envisageable ?

Background

Telemedicine and virtual psychotherapy have been developing worldwide for over a decade, but evaluations of this new treatment modality are still too rare. Is this evolution in therapeutic treatment protocols satisfactory? Does resistance to this development come from the practitioner or the patient? Can long-term COVID, a chronic pathology that emerged after the pandemic of 2020, benefit from this approach to therapy? This article seeks to answer that question.

Objectives and methods

Structured in two parts, this article first presents a detailed review of past and current work on telemedicine, and virtual psychotherapy. In the second part, the authors explore ways of treating the psychopathological symptomatology of long COVID, which is essentially characterized by anxiety-depressive disorders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Results

Multidisciplinarity is essential in the management of long COVID. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) have proved to be effective treatment methods for the psychopathological disorders inherent in long COVID. Virtual reality, as well as augmented reality, also seems to be indicated as effective in virtual psychotherapy treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Discussion and conclusion

Whatever the theoretical model underlying the actions and methods of virtual psychotherapy, it is important to accept without hesitation the framework. It would appear that the transferential and counter-transferential components of therapeutic relationships are not affected by the change of setting. The quality of the therapeutic alliance is strengthened by the reassuring aspect of consultations from the patient's usual place of residence. In addition to videoconference therapies, epistolary therapies using email exchanges seem also to be particularly interesting.