therapists

Dos and Don’ts of Therapy on the Go: Navigating the use of apps for mental health care

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It might be sur­pris­ing to think about brows­ing for ther­a­pists and order­ing up men­tal health care the way you can peruse a menu on Grub­hub or sum­mon a car on Lyft.

But over the last decade, dig­i­tal access to ther­a­py has become increas­ing­ly com­mon, in some cas­es replac­ing the tra­di­tion­al mod­el of in-per­son week­ly ses­sions between a ther­a­pist and client.

Apps for men­tal health and well­ness range from mood track­ers, med­i­ta­tion tools and jour­nals to ther­a­py apps that match users to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. My team’s research focus­es on ther­a­py apps that work by match­ing clients to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. [Read more…] about Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

From “Eminence-based” to Evidence-based mental healthcare: Time to focus on quality and accountability

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For the men­tal health cri­sis of care, qual­i­ty is as much of a prob­lem as quantity.

Most peo­ple who seek men­tal health care for the first time are baf­fled by how to find a clin­i­cian. I know what many par­ents felt. When my daugh­ter, Lara, fin­ished her first semes­ter at Ober­lin, she returned home to Atlanta thin and exhaust­ed. I was excit­ed to have her back home and entire­ly clue­less about her des­per­ate strug­gle with anorex­ia. In fact, as I learned lat­er, she had been dri­ven by obses­sions about her weight and her appear­ance for over a year by that point. As was true of Amy, her per­fec­tion­ism and her shame at not being per­fect kept her from shar­ing this strug­gle. And now, in a cri­sis after a year of anguish, she was ask­ing for help. As a pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at the uni­ver­si­ty, I should have noticed her seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and yet I missed it. At least, now that Lara was ask­ing for help, I should know where to find the best care. But the uni­ver­si­ty had no resources specif­i­cal­ly for eat­ing dis­or­ders, and I could not find a cen­ter for her treat­ment any bet­ter than Amy’s par­ents had. For­tu­nate­ly, Lara, ever the prob­lem solver, found an inten­sive out­pa­tient pro­gram with a superb ther­a­pist and began a long, suc­cess­ful road to recov­ery. But even as a pro­fes­sion­al in this space, I found it dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate the maze of care. The first issue is that there are so many dif­fer­ent types of pro­fes­sion­als: social work­ers, mar­riage and fam­i­ly coun­selors, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gists, pro­fes­sion­al psy­chol­o­gists, psy­chi­a­trists —and they all call them­selves ther­a­pists. The choice real­ly mat­ters, because what you receive depends large­ly on whom you see.

This is not true for can­cer or asth­ma or heart dis­ease, but in men­tal health care, there is lit­tle con­sen­sus among the var­i­ous care providers as to how to approach even the most com­mon forms of men­tal ill­ness. [Read more…] about From “Emi­nence-based” to Evi­dence-based men­tal health­care: Time to focus on qual­i­ty and accountability

Dr. Judith Beck on the future of cognitive therapy and psychotherapy

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Dr. Awais Aftab: What do you think the future of psy­chother­a­py is? What would you like it to be?

Dr. Judith Beck: A num­ber of years ago, a col­league asked my dad whether he expect­ed cog­ni­tive ther­a­py to even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nate the field of psy­chother­a­py. He respond­ed, “I hope good ther­a­py even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nates the field of psy­chother­a­py. Just good ther­a­py.” My father has always said, and I agree, that if sig­nif­i­cant research demon­strates greater sup­port for the the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work and treat­ment of a dif­fer­ent psy­chother­a­py, then that psy­chother­a­py should sup­plant CBT. So far that has not hap­pened. To the con­trary, as the years have gone by, there is more and more sup­port for CBT con­cep­tu­al­ly and in treat­ment efficacy.

In terms of the future of CBT, I think we will con­tin­ue to use research from oth­er fields (such as neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gy, and cog­ni­tive sci­ence) to refine the­o­ry and guide ther­a­py. We will con­tin­ue to seek out what treat­ments work best for whom under what con­di­tions. We will have a stronger empha­sis on iden­ti­fy­ing key process­es to tar­get core medi­a­tors and mod­er­a­tors based on testable the­o­ries. [Read more…] about Dr. Judith Beck on the future of cog­ni­tive ther­a­py and psychotherapy

Teladoc Health, having acquired Livongo and myStrength, launches integrated mental health service for the workplace

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Teladoc builds out men­tal health­care ser­vices with myS­trength Com­plete (Mobi­Health­News):

Vir­tu­al care giant Teladoc is build­ing out its behav­ioral health ser­vices through its lat­est pro­gram, myS­trength Complete.

The new offer­ing is designed to give users a sin­gle inte­grat­ed men­tal health­care expe­ri­ence. It com­bines the app-based mod­els of care from myS­trength with Teladoc’s on-demand ther­a­pists and psy­chi­a­trists … The myS­trength plat­form uses evi­dence-based clin­i­cal mod­els such as cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy and mind­ful­ness to help treat behav­ioral health con­di­tions such as depres­sion, anx­i­ety, insom­nia and sub­stance use dis­or­der. [Read more…] about Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the workplace

Mental health for digital natives in the covid era: Shouldn’t remote counselling be the first line of engagement & treatment?

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The ben­e­fits of remote con­sul­ta­tion for men­tal health treat­ment (Health Europa):

Thor­b­jorg Vig­fus­dót­tir, a cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist by train­ing, spent 12 years as a politi­cian in her native Ice­land with the goal of direct­ing her knowl­edge on the devel­op­ment of the brain into edu­ca­tion and pub­lic pol­i­cy. After leav­ing pol­i­tics to form a com­pa­ny pro­vid­ing remote speech ther­a­py in Ice­landic schools, she was found­ed Kara Con­nect, an online con­sul­ta­tion plat­form enabling ther­a­pists and clin­i­cians to pro­vide remote care and treat­ment, which was recent­ly adopt­ed by the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal of Ice­land (Land­spí­tali).

[Read more…] about Men­tal health for dig­i­tal natives in the covid era: Shouldn’t remote coun­selling be the first line of engage­ment & treatment?

Neuropsychologist Amy Serin, Co-Founder of Brainnovations Winner The Touchpoint Solution, would like to see everyone avoid the detrimental effects of an overactive stress response

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Dr. Serin, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

It was great that at least one of the judges had already pur­chased and start­ed using our prod­uct so we could delve into the nuances of our tech­nol­o­gy quick­ly. And I was thrilled that all judges saw the pos­si­bil­i­ties to cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant glob­al impact.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Touch­Points?

Too many peo­ple suf­fer too much stress, often lead­ing to sleep­less­ness, crav­ings, anger, poor focus, poor per­for­mance, and feel­ing over­whelmed. Touch­Points aim at reduc­ing stress by deliv­er­ing hap­tic microvi­bra­tions via wear­able devices worn on both sides of the body. The [Read more…] about Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Amy Serin, Co-Founder of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner The Touch­point Solu­tion, would like to see every­one avoid the detri­men­tal effects of an over­ac­tive stress response