Online Counselling Sydney: Does It Work as Well as In Person?

Counselling Journey

By Christina Feyes · ~8 min read · Does online counselling really work for Sydney?

Does online counselling really work, or is it a watered-down version?

This is the doubt almost everyone brings, and it is a fair one. It can feel like something must be lost through a camera. The evidence says surprisingly little is.

The 2021 Clinical Psychology Review meta-analysis mentioned above looked across 281 separate outcomes and more than 4,300 clients. Videoconferencing therapy came out broadly on par with face-to-face work for reducing distress. Other reviews have found the same for the thing people worry about most: the therapeutic alliance, meaning the sense of trust and connection between you and your counsellor. Alliance ratings over video tend to match those in the room.

Australia has quietly proven this at scale too. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that around one in five Medicare-funded mental health services are now delivered by telehealth, up from roughly one percent before 2020. Telehealth became a permanent part of the system in December 2021. Millions of Australians have had these sessions. It is no longer an experiment.

What does an online session actually look like?

Less clinical than you might picture. You get a private video link, you click it at your appointment time, and you and I are talking. At Soul Counselling sessions run 90 to 105 minutes, which is longer than a standard hour, so there is room to settle in without watching a clock.

People take sessions from all sorts of places: a spare room in a Blacktown townhouse, a parked car outside the office in the CBD on a lunch break, a bedroom in a Newtown share house with headphones in. You do not need to perform or sit up straight. Tea in hand, dog on the lap, tissues nearby is completely normal. If you would rather not be on camera at all, phone works too, which I will come back to.

How do I keep it private in an apartment or share house?

This is the real Sydney problem, and it is worth naming plainly. A lot of Sydney lives in apartments, terraces and share houses, from Bondi to Parramatta, where walls are thin and privacy is scarce. Being overheard is a genuine fear, not a small one.

A few things that help:

• Use headphones or earbuds so only your side of the conversation is audible, which cuts the risk dramatically.
• Book a time when housemates or family are out, at work, or at the gym.
• Sit in the room furthest from shared walls, or use a white-noise app or a fan outside the door.
• Take the session from your car in the driveway or a quiet car park. Plenty of people do exactly this, and it is completely legitimate.
• If a suburb park or a walk-and-talk phone session suits you better on a given day, that is fine too.

You do not need a perfect soundproof study. You need one reliably private hour. Most people find it once they stop assuming they need a whole quiet house.

What technology do I actually need?

Very little. A smartphone, tablet or laptop, and a reasonably stable internet or mobile connection. That is genuinely it. You do not need to install complicated software or be tech-confident. If you can make a video call to a family member, you can do this.

Sydney’s network coverage is strong across the metro area, from the Inner West to the Sutherland Shire to the Hills. If your home wifi is patchy, switching to mobile data or moving closer to the router usually sorts it. And if the connection drops mid-session, we simply phone each other and keep going. It is not a disaster, and it does not end the appointment.

Who does online counselling suit best?

Online tends to suit people whose lives make getting to a room genuinely hard, or who simply feel more open in their own space. In a city where a cross-town trip can eat two hours, that is a lot of people.

• Busy professionals in the CBD, North Sydney or Macquarie Park who cannot lose half a day to an appointment.
• Parents at home in Penrith, Baulkham Hills or the Northern Beaches juggling school runs and nap times.
• Shift workers, FIFO partners and anyone whose roster laughs at a fixed weekly 5pm slot.
• People in Western Sydney or the outer suburbs who would otherwise face a long drive or a train-and-bus combination just to reach a counsellor.
• Anyone who finds home feels safer and more honest than a waiting room.

If any of that is you, distance is not a barrier. I work with people right across Sydney online, and you can read more about how that fits together on the Sydney counselling page.

Who should not do online counselling?

I would rather be honest than sign everyone up, so here is the flip side. Online is not the right fit for everyone, and forcing it helps no one.

Online counselling is probably not for you right now if you are in crisis or at immediate risk, if you have no space at all where you can speak privately, if your internet or phone connection is genuinely unreliable, or if you know in yourself that you simply need the grounding of another person physically in the room. Some people process better in a shared physical space, and that is a real preference, not a weakness.

If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please do not wait for an appointment. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 any time, or 000 in an emergency. Counselling is for the ongoing work, not the acute moment.

Phone or video: which is better?

Both work, and the right one is the one you will actually relax into. Interestingly, across Australian telehealth generally, phone consultations are used more often than video, so choosing phone puts you in good company.

Video gives us facial expression and a bit more of the felt sense of being together, which some people value. Phone can feel less exposing, and it is a gift for anyone who finds a camera makes them self-conscious, or who wants to close their eyes, or who feels freer walking around their backyard in Campbelltown while they talk. Many people mix the two week to week. You are not locked in. We choose whatever helps you speak freely, and the deeper one-to-one work is the same either way, which you can read about on the individual counselling page.

What is the Sydney angle here, if there is no Sydney office?

Let me be straight with you: Soul Counselling does not have a Sydney room. My only physical base is Southport on the Gold Coast. What I offer Sydney is online and phone counselling, and I think that is a feature rather than a compromise.

Sydney is enormous and the commutes are brutal. Getting from Penrith to a Bondi consulting room and back can cost you the better part of a day and a fair bit of stress before you have even started talking. Online strips that out. Your session slots into your actual life, in your actual suburb, whether that is Manly, Liverpool or the Inner West. The healing does not depend on the postcode of the room. It depends on the quality of the conversation and the trust in it, and those travel perfectly well down a video link.

How do I start without committing to anything?

Gently, and without a card or a contract. The first step is a free 15-minute assessment. It is a short, no-pressure conversation to get a feel for each other, hear what is going on for you, and work out whether I am the right person for it. If we are not a fit, I would far rather tell you and point you elsewhere than book you in regardless.

There is genuinely nothing to lose in that first chat. You can find out a little about my background and how I work on the about Christina page first if you like, then see how it feels to talk.