Chat advice: “Like a diary that answers”

Beaten, tortured, bullied, abused – Stefan Kühne, an expert in online counseling and therapy, knows why people often only seek help very late despite bad experiences: “It’s about shame and fears. Sometimes writing is easier than saying, especially for the young target group. It’s digital anyway.”

The boys prefer to write

This is also evident in the chat advice provided by the telephone counseling service in Upper Austria: While callers are in most cases between 40 and 59 years old, younger people primarily contact us online. 55 percent of those seeking advice via email and 73 percent of those seeking advice via chat are younger than 30 years old. According to Barbara Lanzerstorfer-Holzner, those seeking help get to the point more quickly with chat and email advice than with telephone calls. “Confiding yourself can be achieved within seconds”says the speaker from the Upper Austria telephone counseling service. This variant is time-consuming for the advisors: on average, writing takes twice as long as talking on the phone. Nevertheless, there are numerous advantages.

• Anonymity: Even more than with telephone calls, chat advice gives those affected the opportunity to open up very slowly. “Data protection is very important to us in all areas”says Silvia Breitwieser, head of the Upper Austria telephone counseling service.
• Clarify and organize: Writing makes it possible to organize your thoughts and become clear about the situation. Breitwieser explains: “It’s like a diary that answers.”
• Sustainability: The written conversations can be read.
• Focus: Because you just “a channel” to communicate, it is easier to concentrate on your own problem.
• Always and everywhere: Unlike making phone calls, writing on a cell phone is possible in almost all situations and at all times.

Chat consultations take place on the website onlineberatung-telefonseelsorge.at from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. You can reach the counseling center by telephone around the clock, seven days a week, on the emergency number 142.

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