Internet-Based Interventions: Your Ultimate Online Therapy Guide

Internet-based interventions, or internet interventions, allow therapists to treat their patients with evidence-based mental health solutions for a range of conditions and disorders.

Spanning a vast range of tools and techniques such as iCBT, online mindfulness-based therapies, and more, they can act as the fundamental building blocks of an effective blended counseling strategy. If your goal is to deliver more easily accessible psychological treatments to your clients, this guide shows you how online interventions work in therapy.

Before you get started, we recommend testing out Quenza’s blended care tools with our $1 trial. Our e-therapy software helps you design and deliver professional internet interventions easily, and will help you make a bigger positive impact on your patients’ wellbeing.

What are Internet-Based Interventions?

Practitioners have been using internet interventions like iCBT and teletherapy for over two decades, and they now play a pivotal role in national mental health schemes such as the UK’s IAPT Initiative.[1]

Designed to make mental healthcare more widely available and accessible, the term is typically used to refer to: “Behavioral treatments operationalized and transformed for Web delivery with the goal of symptom improvement.”[2]

A few solutions that fall under this umbrella include:

• Digital psychoeducational interventions, such as informative websites, downloadable resources, and videos
• Internet-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (iCBT), which is used to treat depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions
• Electronic therapy, a catch-all term for synchronous and asynchronous mental health treatments with a professional psychologist or counselor
• Online treatment interventions, which can be solutions like worksheets or activities for dealing with grief, body image, posttraumatic stress, and other psychological challenges, and
• Mental health apps, which can cover everything from self-help apps for symptom management to mood trackers, e-therapy platforms, and more.

6 Best Online Therapy Interventions

Online therapy interventions are digital versions of the same evidence-based treatments that practitioners use to help mental health patients in face-to-face therapy.

Because they have their roots in established frameworks, a few tweaks are often all it takes to digitalize an existing therapy or coaching tool for an effective, engaging online therapy intervention.

Internet-based CBT is a brilliant example; as shown below, it applies demonstrated Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy techniques such as cognitive defusion as interactive virtual activities that clients can engage with online:

Adapting interventions into a virtual format isn’t just equally effective, it also allows online therapists to make them more interactive with multimedia, personalized questions, and other modifications. Quenza’s Moving from Cognitive Fusion to Cognitive Defusion, shown above, is a great example.

Here are more digital interventions that are based on clinical research.

Gratitude in Romantic Relationships

The mental health benefits of gratitude have been studied extensively, with research showing that gratitude interventions can have a positive impact on patients’ positive affect, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction.

Gratitude in Romantic Relationships, shown below, is a practical activity that encourages couples or partners to nurture mutual admiration and affection through appreciation.

This psychology activity asks clients to identify three positive traits that they associate with their partner and write down specific instances when they showed this trait for each.

Moving from Cognitive Fusion to Defusion

Quenza’s Moving from Cognitive Fusion to Defusion intervention teaches clients valuable cognitive restructuring techniques that are based on CBT frameworks.

In this exercise, clients will:

• Identify a self-critical thought
• Fuse with the thought (with helpful prompts)
• Rate and label their thought, and
• Work through an evaluative reflection exercise.

Cognitive Restructuring

Also rooted in CBT, Quenza’s Cognitive Restructuring Expansion is ideal for clients who want to break the link between unhelpful thoughts and negative emotions.

This activity starts with a few examples of positive ‘restructured’ thoughts, then invites clients to identify any automatic negative thoughts they could potentially replace.

They’re given a psychoeducational overview of how cognitive restructuring works and guided through an evaluation of their own maladaptive or bothersome thought processes.

3 Best Online Interventions for Client Homework

Digital interventions are especially useful when the skills or frameworks being shared with a client are more complex.

With an online exercise, your patients can work through their material at a pace that suits them, allowing you to focus on other important aspects during your sessions together.

These internet interventions also make effective use of video, audio, diagrams, or other multimedia to help clients learn effectively:

1. The Body Scan Meditation is easy for individuals to work through in a quiet, peaceful place like home. By opening their awareness of physical experiences, it can facilitate better stress management.
2. This Self-Acceptance Meditation reminds clients of the importance of self-acceptance, helping them accept their weaknesses and strengths.
3. Creating a Positive Body Image is a journaling exercise that clients can work through over the course of a few days, weeks, or months, depending on their treatment plan. The intervals of this Expansion Pathway can be set in advance for automatic delivery of each step in the body image training.

To add steps to this Expansion Pathway or create your own, simply head to Quenza’s Pathway Builder.

How To Perform Online Therapy 101

E-therapy works on the same fundamental principles as in-person therapy, meaning that you may have your own preferred frameworks for delivering treatment.

In the same way, each client’s needs, goals, and challenges will be unique.

Regardless of your patient’s specific treatment plan, Quenza helps you deliver online therapy effectively and efficiently while allowing you to make amendments to your program based on feedback and progress.

It comes down to:

1. Designing and building internet interventions with your Activity Builder or using templates from Quenza’s Expansion Library.
2. Designating them as steps in a treatment plan or program using Quenza’s Pathway Builder (or sharing them directly with clients through Quenza’s HIPAA-compliant client app, if you want to send single interventions)
3. Automating your care pathway to schedule when you’d like your client to receive their interventions, and
4. Tracking client progress with Quenza’s live results tracking feature.

Let’s take a closer look.

Best Software For Applying Interventions

If you’re interested in adapting your interventions for an online audience, Quenza equips you to craft unique therapy tools, manage therapy notes, track progress, and stay in communication with your clients.

Some of Quenza’s internet therapy tools for practitioners include:

• An easy-to-use Activity Builder: Giving you drag-and-drop tools for creating unique digital exercises, worksheets, assessments, and other therapeutic solutions.
• Pathway Tools: For curating your Activities into steps within a larger treatment plan, program, or package. You can also use your Pathway Tools to automatically drip-feed your content to clients on a schedule, and send reminders to complete different activities after they’re sent.
• A HIPAA-compliant client portal: Essentially, a centralized, private, free, and secure app that your clients can use to access all your therapy materials and stay in touch with you.
• An Expansion Library full of customizable therapy activities: Where you can browse customizable exercises, therapy forms, homework for between sessions, and Pathway outlines to use with clients.
• Client tracking tools: For collecting Activity results, therapy form data, and survey responses in real-time. This allows you to monitor your clients’ progress throughout their journeys, amending and updating their treatment plans to better help them achieve their therapy goals.

5 Unique Features Included in Quenza

As well as being equipped with a range of purpose-built tools, Quenza has a wealth of exclusive features for customizing the patient experience.

Here are some of the features that can help you build patient engagement while simplifying your workflow:

1. A dynamic group coaching feature that you can use to deliver group therapy
2. White-label customization, enabling you to upload your practice logo on activities, forms, and emails
3. Multilingual settings and custom colors in Quenza’s client app, so that your clients can interact with therapeutic resources in a way that suits them
4. An online Wheel of Life template, for creating unique life satisfaction assessment tools, and of course
5. Quenza Chat, which gives you a secure, HIPAA-compliant way to stay in touch with all your clients via instant messaging.

Final Thoughts

With a vast array of evidence-based treatments lending themselves beautifully to e-therapy, it’s easier than ever to help your clients online.

A great way to get started is by checking out Quenza’s Expansion Activities and Pathways, which will hopefully inspire you to create your own e-mental health solutions.

We hope you enjoyed this article. If you’re keen to build and share your own internet-based therapy interventions, don’t forget to check out Quenza’s $1, 1-month trial.

With our therapy software, you’ll have all the features and tools you need to deliver unique, effective, and personalized solutions to help your clients, while running your practice seamlessly from anywhere online.

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