Acceso usuarios
Alejandro Cifuentes-Muñoz
Los avances tecnológicos han propiciado el desarrollo de nuevos escenarios para la praxis psicoterapéutica. En tal contexto, la psicoterapia online ha ganado tanta popularidad como su contraparte tradicional, por lo que reflexionar sobre ellas es necesario. El objetivo de este artículo teórico es analizar comparativamente las prácticas de la psicoterapia online y tradicional para demostrar su equivalencia conceptual y epistemológica dentro del paradigma de la constructividad. Primero, se exponen los aspectos concernientes a la psicoterapia tradicional, la psicoterapia online y el paradigma de la constructividad, para luego, mediante una metodología hermenéutica, realizar un análisis comparativo (de las definiciones y la literatura científica que las relaciona) y un análisis epistemológico (desde el paradigma de la constructividad). Los resultados muestran que tales modalidades de psicoterapia son equivalentes tanto en el concepto que representan como en los supuestos epistemológicos que las rigen desde la constructividad. Finalmente, se presentan algunas reflexiones y limitaciones de los hallazgos.
The growing and vertiginous development of information and communication technologies (ICT), together with the various contextual and epidemiological needs associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to the development of new scenarios for the exercise of psychotherapeutic practice. In this context, online psychotherapy, specifically, the one that takes place through video calls, has gained as much popularity as its traditional counterpart, so reflecting on them is not superfluous. Many questions and preconceived ideas have arisen from the comparison of both modalities in the literature; however, this article formulates a problem that has been little addressed and that converges on the following research question: are online psychotherapy and traditional psychotherapy conceptually and epistemologically equivalent? Or, in simpler words, do both psychotherapeutic practices know in the same way the psychological phenomena with which they work and conceptually represent the same thing? These questions will seek to be answered by making a comparative analysis of both forms of psychotherapy together with an epistemological reading of them, respectively.
Therefore, the objective of this theoretical article is to comparatively analyze the practices of online and traditional psychotherapy, demonstrating their conceptual and epistemological equivalence within the paradigm of constructivity.
To achieve this objective, a hermeneutical analysis is carried out. First, the theoretical-conceptual foundations of the analysis are presented: 1) traditional psychotherapy, 2) online psychotherapy and 3) the epistemological paradigm of constructivity. Secondly, and based on the foundations mentioned above, 1) a comparative analysis is carried out, where it is realized how both psychotherapeutic practices conceptually represent or mean the same thing (conceptual equivalence) through a comparative analysis of their definitions and the scientific literature that relates them, and, later, 2) an epistemological analysis, where it is established how both psychotherapeutic practices equivalently know psychological phenomena from the epistemological paradigm of constructivity (epistemological equivalence).
The results of the hermeneutic analysis show that both modalities of psychotherapy are equivalent both in the concept they represent (in their definition and in the literature that compares them) and in the epistemological assumptions of constructivity that govern them. Although the means of communication in both modalities are different, in no case do they modify the assumptions that grant the possibility of knowing psychological phenomena. The active construction of psychotherapeutic reality through language is an epistemic faculty of the observer (therapist/patient) indistinct from the means of communication used in that relational space of shared meanings.
The article concludes with a series of reflections on the findings. In the first place, it is concluded that both traditional and online practice represent, metaphorically speaking, 'two sides of the same coin'. That is, they are equivalent practices both in the concept they represent and in the epistemological assumptions that govern them. Second, epistemological equivalence should not be conceived as a simile of a theoretical equivalence: the first refers to the process of construction of the psychotherapeutic reality through language, and, the second, to the meanings or contents of said process.
Third, there are various postmodern psychotherapeutic perspectives with a narrative approach that have given an account of their foundations around the epistemology of constructivity.
Then, some limitations of the study associated with the epistemological equivalence and the interpretive quality of the article are presented. Finally, some practical repercussions are presented, inviting the reader and/or psychotherapist to continue reflecting on online psychotherapy and to establish whether, within its system of meanings, it is conceived, or not, as a valid practice.
