Maintaining Eye Contact During Teletherapy
Sometime during one of your first teletherapy sessions, you probably experienced a gnawing sense of disconnection as your client stared into space or gazed blankly downward. You may have sensed that the client was withdrawn or distracted, but in fact she could have been striving to look you straight in the eye.
The problem is that when a teletherapy client looks at your eyes on her screen she points her own eyes away from her webcam. And because this perspective shift works both ways, your client might feel like you are staring at your keyboard even as you labor to maintain eye contact.
Fortunately, you can improve the perceived eye contact on both ends by following a few simple practices. Together, these tips can significantly improve the engagement experienced by the client and you.
Looking Into Your Client’s Eyes
When you are video chatting with a client, maximizing the client’s video widow fill your screen might seem like a great way to obtain as much visual information as possible. However, doing so usually compounds the eye contact problem. Maximizing the video window places the client’s eyes around the middle of your screen, or even further down if the client’s camera is positioned in a way that creates empty space above her head. This means that looking into the client’s eyes on your screen makes it look to the client like you are looking downward, avoiding eye contact.
The solution is to shrink the client’s video window down to a third or quarter of your screen size and place that smaller window at the top of your screen, as close as possible to your webcam. With this arrangement, looking at the client’s eyes on your screen points your gaze close to your webcam. As a result, the client feels like you are looking into her eyes. The downside is that you are left with a smaller image of your client, but you can always put that extra screen space to use displaying notes for the current session or past ones.
One other thing to consider: If your client’s video includes a lot of empty space above her head, ask her to adjust her webcam (or the position of her phone or tablet if she’s using one of these devices) to close the that gap. This will move her eyes upward on your screen, closer to your webcam, making it easier for you to project a sense of eye contact.
Guiding the Client’s Eyes to Yours
You can help your client maintain eye contact with you by taking a similar approach in positioning your own webcam. Adjusting your webcam to minimize the empty space above your head in your video feed moves your eyes up the client’s screen, closer to her webcam. Also, if the client is using a tablet or phone, ask her to rotate it vertically so that her camera is at the top of her device rather than off to the side. These two simple steps can significantly improve your sense of eye contact from the client.
