**4. COVID-19 and challenges of online counseling**

The safety requirement of social distancing and lockdown in the context of COVID-19 has forcefully defied the norm of face-to-face counseling services in favor of online. Although online counseling pre-existed COVID-19 but it is still in its infancy and psychologists/counselors were in the process of navigating its full canons and operative modalities. According to Nwachukwu and colleagues [8] online counseling is a viable alternative source of help when traditional psychotherapy is not accessible, therefore counselors could resort to different forms of online such as internet counseling, e-mail counseling, web counseling, e-therapy, tele-therapy and/ or cyber-therapy [7]. However, it is important to note that online counseling is challenging and requires additional training for the traditional professional counselor [7]. In addition, it has cost implication as it involves the use of ICT related components which is not easily available to all counselors/clients particularly in developing countries [8]. Hence some of the frustration could reflect in poor power supply, limited service and lack of competence. Other challenges reflect in the risk of confidentiality and safety of the client's data as storage system for online data could easily be violated by service providers despite the fact that some stored information could become corrupted, thus become inaccessible. Besides, online counseling consumers ought to have access to technology [9], and as well be proficient with online communication which include the ability to express feelings and ideas in text format. As such some scholars argue that online counseling should not replace traditional therapy but rather be used when necessary bearing in mind that not all cases can be handled via e-counseling [8]. Nonetheless, online counseling is convenient and offers the client remote access to therapy and the counselor's physical absence reduces or even eliminates the client's initial shame or need to "save face" while presenting a problem [10].
