Cognitive behavioral therapy online: The latest trend in mental health care

Cognitive behavioral therapy online: The latest trend in mental health care - What if you can get it offers without seeing a psychologist? Many people appreciate the warm relationship, the care provided by a doctor of mental health, but others simply want to improve.  

Many people prefer not open to someone about your problems - at least not in person. Also, see a mental health doctor can be embarrassing and expensive - and it might even be closer.

One of the new frontiers of psychotherapy is the use of the Internet to provide cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression, anxiety and other mental health problems in a way that reduces - or sometimes eliminates - the amount of time spent with physicians in person.  

This delivery method allows new treatments that have been traditionally offered one-on-one to be extended so they can reach many more people. After all, no matter if it is a good treatment if people can not access them.

What are these therapies online?

The field is new, so that data on these online programs are rare - but a team of British researchers recently conducted a review of the available literature. For the review, which toured the medical journals for studies "John Henry" - that is, by comparing the actual software therapy or cognitive behavioral websites that provide treatment for anxiety or depression.

What did the researchers find? They used a rigorous scientific bar and found only five mental health interventions were online compared directly with doctors live offer the same treatment to adults of working age. Two interventions were from Australia and three were Swedish, and all were for social anxiety or panic disorder.

Most online interventions studied by the researchers were divided into sessions, reflecting how CBT delivered in person on a weekly basis. All treatment therapies offered online through written content, also known as "bibliotherapy." This was combined with communication with a mental health clinician, usually a psychologist, on e-mail or mail systems. 

In one study, psychologists were limited to spending only 10 minutes a week to each participant. Some programs add text messages and discussion forums, and most include tasks - things that made participants between sessions - in person as CBT involves practices between sessions.

All treatment groups, in person and online CBT significantly improved symptoms. One study showed better results for online processing, and similar results were found between the two types. Online treatments takes time and much less clinical, making them more profitable.

Does the floor? Any line treatment of participants needed to do a lot of reading, which can be a limiting factor for some people. In addition, written with a psychologist or other clinician interaction of any intervention he was online in this review.  

This means that, to a certain extent, the efficiency of the operation still depends on the physician at the other end. In addition, require physicians to participate at all creates a barrier to the expansion of treatment to achieve a massive number of people.

The latest innovations in a very new area

New programs online and mobile applications emerge that minimize the amount of reading, video and audio use to provide treatment and do not require clinical intervention at all. These simulate live TCC, but can be delivered to a large number of people.  

Direct comparisons of these new programs with traditional therapy (the type of comparison that meet the criteria of the British team) has not yet been published. So stay tuned for the evolution of this new generation of the administration of treatment.
By:  James Cartreine, PhD.