Essential competencies in a clinical psychologist for a functional application of face-to-face and online psychotherapy

Abstract

A systematic review is presented which aimed to identify and compare the features of the clinical skills and abilities of the psychologists in clinical practice in person and online. The collected literature was found through some databases like: PubMed, Elservier, Redalyc, SCIelo, and Scholar Google, articles that were both in english and spanish were considered, mainly published between 2000 and 2020. In the selected browsers, the next set of words were selected: “competencias clínicas”, “habilidades clínicas”, “Psicoterapia”, “Telepsicología”, “psicología clínica”, “clínical skills”, “clinical competence”, “psychotherapy”,  “clinical psychology” and “telepsychology”, those which were found mainly on the title, the abstract and the objectives. The obtained results are a compilation of 7 articles found in Europe and America, which refer to the requirements to practice properly as a mental health professional, however, it was observed that coupled with the little information on the subject, the features that are repeated within the investigations are very general characteristics for the face-to-face setting, and almost nil for the perspective of a psychologist who seeks to perform psychotherapy online.