therapy

Next: Harnessing Neuroplasticity, Medication AND Psychotherapy to treat mental health conditions

by 1 Comment

There is mount­ing recog­ni­tion in the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty that com­bin­ing dif­fer­ent treat­ment approach­es for men­tal health con­di­tions can cre­ate a ben­e­fit greater than the sum of its parts.

As a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and neu­ro­science researcher, I have been work­ing to inte­grate insights from both fields to expand treat­ment options for those suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety and relat­ed con­di­tions. Design­ing a treat­ment plan that pays care­ful atten­tion to the sequence and dose of both bio­log­i­cal and behav­ioral ther­a­pies might ben­e­fit peo­ple in new ways that nei­ther approach can achieve on its own. [Read more…] about Next: Har­ness­ing Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Med­ica­tion AND Psy­chother­a­py to treat men­tal health conditions

Major evidence review supports an “exercise prescription” for most adults to boost mental health and well-being

by

When you head to your week­ly yoga class or lift weights at the gym, you’re doing some­thing good for your phys­i­cal health: get­ting more fit today, and so pro­tect­ing your body into the future.

What you may not always think about, though, is that you’re also pro­tect­ing your­self from anx­i­ety and depression—about as much as you would be if you were going to ther­a­py or tak­ing med­ica­tion. At least that’s the con­clu­sion of a very large new study that syn­the­sizes decades of research on exer­cise and men­tal health.

The study doesn’t just pro­vide this key insight—in fact, the researchers were also able to iden­ti­fy what kind of exer­cise and how much of it is best for men­tal health. [Read more…] about Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health and well-being

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

by

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

by

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

Otsuka and Virtual Reality start-up Jolly Good sign $43M deal to promote Social Skills Training (SST) therapies, helping schizophrenia patients first

by

Jol­ly Good and Tei­jin Phar­ma Form a Part­ner­ship to Devel­op VR Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics for Depression

Otsu­ka signs on Jol­ly Good for $43M men­tal health VR deal (Fierce Biotech):

The duo will build out software—hosted on Jol­ly Good’s VR gog­gles and con­nect­ed tablet devices, and backed by Otsuka’s exper­tise in devel­op­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal therapeutics—that takes a social skills train­ing (SST) approach to treat­ing men­tal ill­ness. SST is a behav­ioral ther­a­py in which patients with anx­i­ety, mood and per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­ders, among oth­er con­di­tions, are taught on a step-by-step basis how to nav­i­gate spe­cif­ic social inter­ac­tions. [Read more…] about Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

Study: Self-guided sleep app Sleepio, combined with standard care for depression and anxiety, delivers better outcomes than standard care alone

by

Study backs ben­e­fit of insom­nia DTx Sleepio on men­tal health (pharmapho­rum):

The study – pub­lished in the jour­nal Behav­iour Research and Ther­a­py – test­ed the Sleepio app devel­oped by dig­i­tal health spe­cial­ist Big Health as an add-on to stan­dard NHS care for anx­i­ety and depres­sion under the improv­ing access to psy­cho­log­i­cal ther­a­pies (IAPT) policy.

Patients who signed up to use Sleepio – a six-week dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py (CBT) course – achieved sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter improve­ment in symp­toms com­pared to con­trols, with an IAPT recov­ery rate of near­ly 65% ver­sus 58% in the con­trol group. [Read more…] about Study: Self-guid­ed sleep app Sleepio, com­bined with stan­dard care for depres­sion and anx­i­ety, deliv­ers bet­ter out­comes than stan­dard care alone