This chapter proposes the hypothesis that online therapeutic work may be relatively less arousing than face-to-face work. It focuses on a study in which the impact of exchanges of online therapy text exchanges were compared to previously published results in face-to-face therapy using both aggregate benchmarking and mixed effects modeling. Therapists (N = 30) and clients (N = 30) engaged in online therapy were recruited from private practitioner sites, e-clinics, online counseling centers, and mental health related discussion boards. In a naturalistic design, they each visited an online site weekly and completed the Session Evaluation Questionnaire, a standard impact measure, for at least six weeks. Results indicated that the impact of text therapy was similar to or even more positive than that of faceto-face therapy. Of particular interest, online participants gave much lower SEQ Arousal ratings compared to their face-to-face counterparts, consistent with previous results. We call our hypothesis the online calming effect. This study's small size and naturalistic design impose limitations on its sensitivity and generalizability, but its suggestion of an online calming effect is intriguing.