With the therapist's help, clients can use online relationships and communities as a way to explore their interpersonal style and experiment with and rehearse new behaviors. What is learned online can be carried into offline living. Online relationships can be used to systematically desensitize social anxieties and build social skills. Socially anxious people may especially benefit from talking online with other socially anxious people. Meeting in-person may be an important developmental step for them.
Clients can express and explore themselves by sharing what they do online.
It is an important therapeutic event when the clinician or client visits the other's online spaces. Online cyberaffairs may sometimes enhance a marriage. Behavior in cyberspace involves a simultaneous acting and observing of one's actions. This may be intrapsychically significant to some clients. The therapist should encourage and work with the client's empowering access to online information and transformative experiences.