Everyone can recall at least one person from their freshman
dorm hall that locked themselves away each night to feverishly study, and was
rarely seen at a social event of any kind.
Over the past few years, the number of college students that
suffer from existing or developing psychological problems has become
increasingly alarming. According to data
from a recent survey distributed to college mental health facilities, the Association for University
and College Counseling Center Directors found that anxiety (41.6%), depression
(36.4%) and relationship problems (35.8%) are of high concern and negatively affect their student’s lives .
These severe psychological problems cannot be taken lightly and if ignored can
result in poor academic performance, negative behavior, or in extreme cases – tragedies
such as suicide or acts of violence (i.e. school shootings.)
Over the past few years, the number of college students that
suffer from existing or developing psychological problems has become
increasingly alarming. According to data
from a recent survey distributed to college mental health facilities, the Association for University
and College Counseling Center Directors found that anxiety (41.6%), depression
(36.4%) and relationship problems (35.8%) are of high concern and negatively affect their student’s lives .
These severe psychological problems cannot be taken lightly and if ignored can
result in poor academic performance, negative behavior, or in extreme cases – tragedies
such as suicide or acts of violence (i.e. school shootings.)
In
the aftermath of a campus tragedy, heads automatically turn to issues of
inadequate safety protocols or access to weaponry. We can spend countless hours
trying to perfect campus security or advocating for reversed weapon laws, but
there is another angle to approach when battling this unfortunate reality –
improved campus psychological services and availability.
In the previously
mentioned study, 19% of the surveyed directors reported that the availability of
psychiatric services on their campus is inadequate. As budget cuts continue to
roll in nationwide, hiring more staff is simply not a valid solution for many
colleges. However, what if there was a tool that could assist clinicians in
monitoring their patients that promoted efficiency and improved diagnoses so
that they could increase patient volume?
Mobile Therapy is a web-based dashboard and mobile application that
collects data from patient’s smartphones, using this data to bridge the
information gap between what has occurred between office visits. This data is translated
into easy to read reports that track
progress, identify triggers, monitor medication compliance and more.
In today’s market,
several tools have emerged to monitor patient behavior or provide virtual
therapy, but they often lack strong scientific research. Mobile Therapy is
designed by a renowned team of psychologists including Harvard’s DanGilbert,
University of Texas, Austin’s JamesW. Pennebaker, to
name a few. Their combined expertise and scientific research has allowed Mobile
Therapy to capture valuable data that aids the clinician in treatment process
and diagnoses.
As a Smartphone
application, Mobile Therapy appeals to the younger, tech savvy generation. It
is easy for students to check in throughout the day at the swipe of a finger
answering quick, customizable slider questions about how they are feeling and
what they are doing. Mobile Therapy also tracks passive data such as physical
activity and emotional sentiment, using an advanced text analysis system.
Mobile Therapy
allows clinicians to collect more information about the students than they
would typically obtain during an office visit. Patients of this age group – and
college students in general – may be more reluctant than older patients to
fully disclose any information in person that they feel to be private, or
emotional. This may also be why many turn to outlets such as social media to
express themselves buffered by their computer screens. Gaining access to more
detailed, in-depth patient information can allow for more efficient office
visits and overall treatment processes – ultimately creating more availability
for the clinician.
“Up until now
therapists have had to rely upon what their clients tell them when they’re in
the office. Starting now with Mobile Therapy, therapists have access to what
their clients were really thinking, feeling and doing when they weren’t being
seen.” – Dan Gilbert, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University;
Author of Stumbling Happiness
Thinking back to the person that came to mind at the
beginning of this article, were they depressed? Stressed? Antisocial? Or just a
dedicated student? It’s tough to say, but it is crucial for college campuses to
have the appropriate resources available, in order to support the 40% of college students that are suffering from mild to serious (21%) mental health problems.
It’s said that approximately 50% of the population
prescribed medication does not comply with the full term of their treatments.
This causes an issue in measuring the medication’s efficacy in that patient and
limits the realization of its benefits.
SelfEcho’s Mobile Therapy offers several tools that
clinicians can use to assist in motivating and measuring medication compliance
in patients. The system includes a reporting dashboard when clinicians can
track emotional reports and behaviors of clients using data that is collected
by a mobile app that runs on the client’s dashboard. One of the features the
reporting includes is a section where previous and current medication may be
entered. These medications and a patient’s compliance can be juxtaposed against
other tracked metrics like moods and behaviors.
Here are a few examples that showcase how one can use Mobile Therapy’s
reporting system to promote medication compliance.
1. Address Improvements
Comparing the changes in behavior and mood from before and after the start of a medication regimen is easily accomplished using the reporting dashboard. Sharing this data with a patient gives the patient a clear visual understanding of their improvement and creates an association between medication and progress.
Comparing the changes in behavior and mood from before and after the start of a medication regimen is easily accomplished using the reporting dashboard. Sharing this data with a patient gives the patient a clear visual understanding of their improvement and creates an association between medication and progress.
Seeing this progress motivates the client to continue with
their medication regime.
2. Pair old and new routines
If the patient is
meant to take their medication at a certain time of day, encourage them to pair
taking the dose with an already well-established habit. In the morning, pairing medication with their
current routine of brushing teeth, is one example. Piggybacking medication on
top of a common habit is easier than doing it out of the blue and will
eventually create a mental reminder and assist in the formation of a new habit
that includes medication.
3.
Increase Awareness
There are cases where clients fail to comply with their medication schedule because of a lack of awareness and understanding. Sometimes the client is poorly educated about their condition and the importance of their medication schedule. Increasing health literacy -ensuring that the client is very familiar with the purpose and effect of the medication- has been shown to boost adherence to a medication schedule.
There are cases where clients fail to comply with their medication schedule because of a lack of awareness and understanding. Sometimes the client is poorly educated about their condition and the importance of their medication schedule. Increasing health literacy -ensuring that the client is very familiar with the purpose and effect of the medication- has been shown to boost adherence to a medication schedule.
Here is an image of the Mobile Therapy medication dashboard.
Clinician’s can input and reference past medications, dosages, and frequencies.
With this information one can address concerns and questions clients have about
their previous medication experiences and how it has been adjusted over time in
accord with their progress and how it may be adjusted in the future.
As a best practice always ensure that a patient is aware of
the details of their prescribed medication(s), what the effects and possible
side effects are, and be sure to follow-up with them routinely to assess
impacts. Suggest adjustments in medication and dosage as they are required. Medication
compliance and adherence is difficult to measure and maintain, but with Mobile
Therapy it becomes quite a bit easier.
Mass media rarely focuses on all of the experiments that
didn’t work: all of the budding theories that were so close to being a
breakthrough in our conception of the world. Media rarely shows the failures of
science—with the exception of psychology. Psychology: the soft science. The science that can’t really be called a science because it’s all fuzzy guesswork based
on theories that aren’t always conclusive.
Our culture isn’t sure how it feels about psychotherapy. Take
a drug, it changes your brain chemistry, and you get better. Now that’s a strong formula. It’s often more
difficult to convince people that variations of talk therapy can either aid in
the success of a medication, or render the medication unnecessary altogether.
Just like it’s easier to believe that the scientific method is foolproof, it’s
easier to believe that popping a pill can solve all of our problems.
“We trained students for a world that no longer exists,” APS
Fellow Varda Shoham stated at the 24th APS Annual Convention, “the
clinical psychologists are no longer the only front line providers of mental
health service.” So what can clinical psychologists do to adapt to this
cynical, over-medicated new world? Empirically tracking the success of
therapeutic endeavors might be just the kind of proof of efficacy mental health
patients are craving.
Advances in medical technology have the capacity to
modernize psychological practices in astounding ways. A brand new tool for
clinical psychologists is Mobile Therapy, which has the capability to provide
exactly the type of empirical tracking that illustrates the efficacy of practices
and medications, distinguishing the modern clinician as a new, innovative breed
of therapist. The software is comprised of an online dashboard for clinicians
and an app on their patients’ smartphones. The app notifies each patient to provide
updates throughout the day by answering questions that the clinician has customized
to address the patient’s specific needs.
This app improves the extent of access patients have to
psychological therapy, as patients can have confidence that what they provide
to the app is being analyzed through scientifically-validated data that
increases the clinician’s understanding of their unique situation. It likewise
improves the quality of access clinicians have to their patients because they
get a clear sense of what’s going on between
visits. And—thanks to the app features that run in the background of the
phone—clinicians can even get clear data on the things their patients can’t
articulate.
Now clinical psychologists have the tools to fight the
criticism that “therapists can’t prove
that their methods work.” Visit www.mobiletherapy.com to see how software can make being a therapist a simpler science.
The Internet seems
to be the solution to everything: education, entertainment, socializing, even
healthcare. It’s the self-help book that’s updated every millisecond, feeding
us with more information than we could possibly absorb from every angle that we
can imagine. But can it be a substitute for mental health therapy?
As
a therapist, you know that a generalized article posted online and a few nifty
smartphone apps can’t replace the one-on-one care that you provide. As far
along as we may be in our technological advancement, the average Joe doesn’t
have access to the level of artificial intelligence you’ve seen in “Her,” where
he can develop a complete relationship with a computerized system. New
research (Source)
has, however, suggested that people might be more comfortable disclosing
emotional matters to their screens than they are to another person. Even a
Skype session with a therapist can be more fruitful (Source)—in
some cases—than a face-to-face visit
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of
this research is that people exhibited more honest self-disclosure when they weren’t communicating with someone in
real-time. Since the subjects of the study knew that researchers were going to be
monitoring their responses later, you would think that they would share as
openly as though they were sharing directly with another person, right? Not
so—just the temporary distance was enough to give the subjects a sense of
greater privacy. But as a therapist who knows firsthand the value of in-person
mental health treatment, how can you use this information to improve your
therapy practice?
SelfEcho's Mobile Therapy product is a
real-time patient monitoring system that allows you to fill in the
knowledge-gaps between sessions with the in-the-moment honesty your patients
can express on the comfortable platform of their smartphone. Throughout the
day, the Mobile Therapy app will send them customizable reminders to take note of
the information that will be useful to you, such as how they’re feeling at the
time given their surroundings and activities. The app will also run in the
background, picking up on certain data passively. This data will then be
tracked and communicated with you through the friendly interface of your own
Self Echo Dashboard so that you can empirically monitor the efficacy of your
treatments.
In short, maybe
your patients can be more honest when they aren’t
with you, but now, you can use that to help you both.
A positive mindset is important to living a happy and successful life, but this is much easier said than done. One of the most common objections to “why I can be positive” is that someone else around you is creating negativity. Each of us knows a Negative Nancy or Debbie Downer, and this is a valid objection, since someone else who is perpetually criticizing can generally diminish your cheerful outlook or incite a reactionary response leading to an escalation of negativity. Though it would be ideal to avoid these individuals, sometimes they are our family members, bosses, or co-workers and are firmly implanted in our lives.
Many of us would like to remain upbeat but when met with resistance or attack we crumble because we do not know how to combat this challenge. Barbara Fredrickon, a leading researcher and pioneer in Positive Psychology offers 3 practical steps to follow to help diffuse negativity, whether it be an argumentative spouse or a pessimistic coworker. Through these techniques we can avoid being pulled to into negativity or escalating the situation and often help the other individual or ourselves see new perspectives.
1. Modify the Situation Ask yourself tough questions like:
Experiment with your own behavior when you interact with them. Try expressing more warmth, ask more questions, show particular interest in the lighter messages they convey, find ways to infuse humor, compassion and hope. Above all else don’t respond to negativity with more negativity. Avoid taking their comments personally and do your best to shift the perspective from half-empty to half-full. Meet their hostility with kindness; it is difficult for someone to be negative when he or she is in the presence of love and kindness.
2. Attend Differently Look to the positive attributes of this person. Consider how you might give voice to what you appreciate about them. Work on enhancing the strengths of the relationship to mitigate the weaknesses. Complement them and highlight these strengths. People love to live up to the expectations that have been set for them and their behavior will reflect whatever you reinforce.
3. Change Meanings Some people, no matter what you do, will forever be Negative Nancy’s. In a situation like this ask yourself, ”Could this person -or this situation- be a teacher in disguise?” Instead of seeing this person as a weight pulling you down, reframe the situation to make it a challenge–an opportunity for you to practice being more mindful, less judgmental, or more compassionate. You always have a choice in how you react.
Many of us would like to remain upbeat but when met with resistance or attack we crumble because we do not know how to combat this challenge. Barbara Fredrickon, a leading researcher and pioneer in Positive Psychology offers 3 practical steps to follow to help diffuse negativity, whether it be an argumentative spouse or a pessimistic coworker. Through these techniques we can avoid being pulled to into negativity or escalating the situation and often help the other individual or ourselves see new perspectives.
1. Modify the Situation Ask yourself tough questions like:
- What are my pre-judgements or hidden assumptions about this person?
- How might this be influencing my behavior toward them?
- Am I baiting them somehow?
Experiment with your own behavior when you interact with them. Try expressing more warmth, ask more questions, show particular interest in the lighter messages they convey, find ways to infuse humor, compassion and hope. Above all else don’t respond to negativity with more negativity. Avoid taking their comments personally and do your best to shift the perspective from half-empty to half-full. Meet their hostility with kindness; it is difficult for someone to be negative when he or she is in the presence of love and kindness.
2. Attend Differently Look to the positive attributes of this person. Consider how you might give voice to what you appreciate about them. Work on enhancing the strengths of the relationship to mitigate the weaknesses. Complement them and highlight these strengths. People love to live up to the expectations that have been set for them and their behavior will reflect whatever you reinforce.
3. Change Meanings Some people, no matter what you do, will forever be Negative Nancy’s. In a situation like this ask yourself, ”Could this person -or this situation- be a teacher in disguise?” Instead of seeing this person as a weight pulling you down, reframe the situation to make it a challenge–an opportunity for you to practice being more mindful, less judgmental, or more compassionate. You always have a choice in how you react.
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