Internet counseling

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The website of the ecumenical pastoral Internet www.seelsorge.net the Swiss Churches was founded in 2005 with a new corporate identity equipped

The term Internet pastoral care refers to pastoral care that is medially conveyed via the Internet and takes place interactively, and is thus a special form of living space-oriented pastoral care . In contrast to the ecumenical pastoral care by telephone , which has developed as a separate organization and has now had its name protected under trademark law, Internet pastoral care is offered by various pastors and organizations.

Internet pastoral care must be distinguished from the pure information offering on pastoral care . Such information can offer orientation and help people if necessary. However, the pastoral care offer itself then refers beyond the internet without providing an interactive communication offer within this media platform .

As an information and communication platform, the Internet also offers new opportunities for counseling and pastoral care . Individual pastors , but also initiatives and organizations of the Protestant and Catholic churches , have been offering Internet pastoral care since the mid-1990s. The church umbrella organizations for voluntary welfare , Diakonie and Caritas , also have interactive communication offers on the net, which fall under the heading of online advice.

Use of the Internet

The term 'Internet counseling' is used in a very broad context. It is pastoral care in which communication takes place in some form over the Internet. Very different approaches come to light: contact via a website, pastoral care by e-mail , chat or in forums , up to SMS pastoral care , which is handled via an SMS gateway . Often, combinations of these technologies are also used.

The Swiss pastor Jakob Vetsch went online with the first concept of pastoral care on the Internet on September 27, 1995 . Soon a team was offering e-mail counseling in different languages ​​and countries. On July 29, 1999, the first SMS pastoral care was added.

Conceptual differences

In addition, there are also considerable conceptual differences: Many internet pastors identify themselves as a person by putting a short profile of themselves - sometimes with a photo - on their homepage. In contrast, there is also the concept of anonymity on both sides. Telephone counseling has implemented this concept on the Internet, analogous to its principles on the telephone.

Catholic Internet pastoral care centers have joined forces on the Internet pastoral care portal www.internetseelsorge.de of the Catholic Missionary Pastoral Office of the German Bishops' Conference and offer people in difficult life situations encrypted brief counseling on multiple answers via email counseling. A consultant is selected by the client. The consultants introduce themselves with a photo. Clients register and receive an account with the provider through which the consultation is processed.

On the Protestant side there are comparable offers such as the Netseelsorge of the Baden regional church . In addition, there is the chat pastoral care of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover and the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland with a group chat at certain times and the opportunity for separate individual chats. In Switzerland there is a joint offer of the Reformed and the Catholic churches, which includes both advice via email and SMS.

Experiences from practice

The experience of providers of pastoral care on the Internet shows that contrary to what was initially assumed, pastoral contacts on the Internet are intensive. For example, those seeking advice when using telephone counseling on the Internet describe that they write about problems that they have not yet confided to anyone. It is precisely the low threshold of the offer and the possibility of anonymity that this form of pastoral care can become intensive. This creates the paradoxical situation of closeness through distance , which has been described in telephone counseling since the beginning of this pastoral care, which is also mediated by the media. This distance through the medium even enables communication on topics that are otherwise considered taboo : questions of faith, sexuality, dying, death, guilt and forgiveness. For many people, chat and mail communication seem to be even more accessible than telephone calls, as you don't even have to use your voice on the Internet.

Challenges and problems

Pastoral care on the Internet brings with it new problems and questions about the quality and framework conditions of the offer. So far, the topic of Internet pastoral care has hardly found its way into the training curricula of pastoral workers. The special points such as internet addiction , “suicidality and internet” or in general “psychology and internet”, media competence , interactive public relations etc. are often hardly seen by those responsible in education and training. Another problem is the apparent anonymity of the network, which in reality does not exist. It is easy to observe the communication. People who turn to pastors on the Internet can, under certain circumstances, be "overheard" without those involved being aware of this. It is therefore important to develop practical concepts that guarantee the quality of the offers and confidentiality on the Internet as well.

See also

literature

  • Bruno Amatruda: Future Internet, Kik-Verlag, 1999.
  • Cordula Eisenbach-Heck / Traugott Weber: Six years of “telephone counseling on the Internet”. A report on the evolution of email counseling. In: Elmar Etzersdorfer, Georg Fiedler, Michael Witte (ed.): New media and suicidality - dangers and possibilities for intervention. Publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen 2003. pp. 73-86. ISBN 3-525-46175-5
  • Frank van Well: Psychological counseling on the Internet. Bergisch Gladbach 2000: E. Ferger-Verlag.
  • Joachim Wenzel: Confidentiality and anonymity on the Internet. Problems of data security and data protection with possible solutions. In: Elmar Etzersdorfer, Georg Fiedler, Michael Witte (ed.): New media and suicidality - dangers and possibilities for intervention. Publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen 2003. pp. 56-70. ISBN 3-525-46175-5
  • Birgit Knatz / Bernard Dodier. Help from the net. Theory and practice of advice via email. Klett-Cotta-Verlag. Stuttgart 2003. ISBN 3-608-89720-8
  • Sabine Bobert : Does the net work? Pastoral care under the conditions of the Internet. Pastoraltheologie 89 (2000), 249–262, as well as magazine for theology and aesthetics 7 (2000)
  • Norbert Götz: caught in the Kopaed network . Munich 2003. ISBN 3-935-68646-3
  • Sascha Meyer: Pastoral Care on the Internet - The Presence of the Catholic Church in the Age of Increasing Medialization of Everyday Life. Saarbrücken 2008. ISBN 978-3-8364-8865-5
  • Birgit Knatz: Handbook Internet Pastoral Care: Basics - Forms - Practice. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2013. ISBN 978-3-579-07402-3

Web links

Commons : Internet pastoral care  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 20 Years of Internet Pastoral Care, September 27, 1995-2015 , Reformed Church Canton Zurich, 2015
  2. ↑ H @ ppy Birthd @ y! The ecumenical Internet pastoral care celebrates its 20th birthday , Raphael Kummer, in: reformierte presse, No. 38 / Zurich, September 18, 2015
  3. ^ A pastoral care in nibbles , Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ, article by Urs Bühler, January 11, 2001
  4. ↑ 10 years of SMS pastoral care - now with short number "767" , media review by kath.ch, guest article from December 10, 2009
  5. ^ 10 Years of SMS Pastoral Care, July 29, 1999-2009 , SRF Regional Journal Zurich Schaffhausen, broadcast on December 10, 2009