Facilitating Online Counseling: Perspectives from Counselors in Training

To address the need for research regarding online counseling, the authors explore the experiences of 4 female and 2 male Caucasian counseling students who facilitated 5 chat-based online counseling sessions. Conducting semistructured interviews based in grounded theory methods, the authors discuss technological barriers, counseling without visual and verbal cues, online counseling techniques, counseling from home, and factors related to the pace of the sessions. They suggest that online counseling requires specific technical, ethical, and clinical considerations.