Published Paper Details:

Background: With the globe in a critical situation, clinicians and psychologists are tapping into several mediums to provide psychological help. However, clinical therapy is still a luxury to many, which makes it important to set guidelines for the existing media. Professionals must work from a conceptual framework coupled with ethics and accuracy. Considering the rise in mental distress among the vulnerable population, more accessible media like text-messaging and video-calling are being adopted, making psychological practice feasible even with limited resources. Objective: This paper is an attempt to make text-based therapy more guided. One aspect of computer-based communication is the use of emoticons. It will be covering the use of this feature in a therapeutic context. Methods: A manual literature review was conducted to conclude the effective use of emoticons in text therapy. Studies evaluating text-based psychological interventions were included. Results:Through this study, it can be concluded that the use of emoticons might be appropriate in context to professional text-based therapy. fMRI studies were also reviewed to gain neural correlates of emoticons. Conclusions: The premise to create an ethical therapeutic space could be generated through vigilant professionalism and empathy even if it is on a mobile screen. Although text-based therapy is a budding practice yet the future implications of this study could lead to specialized courses and professional practices. Moreover, through text-based therapy, seeking help can become more accessible. Since this paper is a literature review, it falls far from considering the practical aspect of the presented results.