“ Psy apps ”New (but better) Vine in old Bottles

Svein OeverlandPsychologist and entrepreneur

Superego.aswww.psykologivirkeligheten.blogspot.no

Twitter: @sveinoeverland

Change

• The world is changing

• The speed is increasing

• The rules are evolving

The new reality

Internet has changed it all

And even computers will soon be obsolete

• The sale of computers have declined the last two years

• In four years time, the «personal computer» will be a phone, a tablet, a watch or something all together new

Life is good for the lucky few

•But there “isnt enough Love to go Around”•While the rest of the world is changing, mental health services insist in keep doing what they have always done•The development in online and digital services can change this

The question is not

• How to stop the development

• But how to regard it as a possibility to better adopt and develop health care

• for preventing mental health problems and helping people with psychological disorders

What would these guys have done?

Freud, Pavlov and Skinner were scientist, trying their best both to make psychology a science and for it to be a liberating force

Søren Kierkegaard• “If One Is Truly to Succeed in Leading a Person

to a Specific Place, One Must First and Foremost Take Care to Find Him Where He is and Begin There.

• This is the Secret in the True Art of Helping”.

Where is “ the other ”?• People with severe anxiety does not show up

in an overcrowded waiting room in a outpatient clinic or at the doctors office

• They dont fill out their home assignment with pen and paper while having an panic attack in the shopping center

• They want to meet a therapist in a way THEY feel comfortable and to get help when THEY most need the help

Online and digital therapy• Abraham Wolfe defined online therapy 10

years ago without either him or online therapy getting the attention it deserved

• Online therapy is now finally getting its due attention, but most health authorities are still quite sceptical

• And this apllies even more so for “Psy-apps”

Definition of online therapy“The use of computers as tools to enable and/or enhance the provision of therapeutic services”. Abraham Wolf, 2003

Definition of Psy-Apps“The use of mobile applications as tools to enable and/or enhance the provision of behavioral change”. Svein Oeverland, 2013

My office in Real Life

My office in SecondLife

Simulated environments

Simulated environments• Pasients with high levels of anxiety, shame or risk

related problems can learn and experiment with new skills and/or coping strategies in safe closed environments such as InWorld or even SIMS

• This can be used in the first phase of treatment, as a supplement or as home assignments

• The possibilities are legio (in the previous slide I am using SIMS with a group of patients and “pauses” the game to get ideas from the group how to best cope with a situation).

Online therapy• There is already a lot of platforms developed

for digital interaction between patients and therapist, for instance 24-rrs.com and chatterbay

• Research even suggest such treatment can be better than F2F standard therapy! (http://www.mediadesk.uzh.ch/articles/2013/psychotherapie-via-internet-wirkt-gleich-gut-oder-besser-wie-im-sprechzimmer_en.html)

• But online therapy is not really anything new, just a new wrapping

The StopSelfHarm app

Psy apps are self help• Psy apps are meant as self help• The patient knows his needs better than the

therapist, but needs help clarifying goals and method for getting the best help

• The SuperEgo apps are not only “digital brochures”, but interactive tools for helping the patients in a way and when the patients is in need of help

Features• Pre recorded voice messages targeted for

coaching and motivation• Possibility for the pasients, his/hers friends,

parents or therapist to add a personalized voice message

• Possibility to schedule the voice recordings at a time when the patients know they will need it, but are unable to ask for help

• Web resources

Old wine• But even psy apps are really nothing new• It is only a new and better and more creative

and cheaper and more promising and time adapted way of the good old doctors home visit or the possibility to call a therapist for help after hours

• It is old wine in new bottles• But it is better wine.

Virtual Reality is ”the new world”

And what is Reality?

• “Reality is merely an illusion ... It is just a very persistent one”

Albert Einstein

• "When the online services of the future is starting to develop, we have an obligation as psychologists to be proactive both in scientific and ethical ways"

The president of the norwegian psychologist association

• "The difference between online therapy and standard psychotherapy is like the difference between poetry and prose"

Eva Jacobsen – dinpsykologonline.no

Good luck to us all!