Interaktionen i digitala samtal - En kvalitativ studie om hur kuratorer upplever och beskriver digitala samtal under pandemin

Sammanfattning: Due to the restrictions of the corona pandemic the counsellors at the Swedish Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services had to suddenly transition to online counselling. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine how social workers, i.e. psychiatry counsellors, describe and experience online counselling and the impact it has on the interaction. The method chosen in this study was qualitative interviews with six different professional counsellors from six different child psychiatric units around Sweden. In analysing our results, we applied Erving Goffman's dramaturgical perspective and George Herbert Mead's concept of resistance. The results showed that counsellors experienced some changes in the interaction with patients after the transition to online counselling. The loss of nonverbal communication and communicative tools lead to many misunderstandings and therefore the counsellors had to be more distinct in their way of expressing themselves. The new surrounding environment has proved to be important for the characteristics of the interaction. Further, the councellors found that technical glitches were hard to handle and limited the time for counselling. On the other hand, the digital meeting has led to time efficiency and new priorities have been set.