PTSD therapy: computerized text analysis

I liked this presentation's direction.

2 things I would do:

1) Instead of theorizing which linguistic components might predict therapy outcome, just let the system find them. Search engine technology can do much more than just spot future tense and first person, for example, analyzing the semantics to determine the subjects in the text.

2) Effect measurement is not clear. I did not read the full article, but since it is not specified I assume nothing new. I would try to measure the results online - to see a timeline interaction between writing of the texts and well being, and also measure them in indirect ways such as biofeedback and response time to stroop tasks, since self report may interact with personal writing. Even if I am wrong, self report should be crossed with implicit measures.

So cool :)

Text Analysis Of The Interapy Pts Corpus

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How to: start an online industry

I'm on my way to work, reading this old article about online therapy by Michael Fenichel* on the bus, and feeling like something is missing here. The writer of the article tries to translate the face to face psychotherapy principles to those that would apply online. For example, he asks whether the font of an online therapy chat could be interpreted as transference. Well I don't know. Really, I guess it depends on many things. But theorizing about it won't give you the answer either.

In my view, online therapy is not the same craft, not the same industry. Applying psychoanalytic techniques is a good way to miss the point.

I think what needs to be done is a theoretic definition of goals (stuff like improve well being), red lines of abuse (privacy etc.), and then, since my bus has arrived at work, a good technical oprationalization of measurements. I mean, ways to check that goals are achieved and red lines are avoided. Anything in the middle, such as font size in therapy chat - that can be measured accordingly.

Gotta go!

*Not  to be confused with Otto Fenichel.

From therapy session to online therapy

I believe the idea of a therapy session is a technical one. When Freud had patients of independent means (that have tons of money) he had 5 sessions a week for a few years, when it's part of public health care insurance (poor folks), it's become 30 sessions tops, and the patient is announced that most work is done between sessions. 

Brick and mortar clinics, are rooms with couches and people, that you have to come to, and meet face to face. I believe they act as bottlenecks in a lot of cases, as the question of matching the best specialist to the most needing patient, becomes a financial and geographic matter. Online therapy offers a lot of people access to therapy. 

Reading the state of the art literature on online therapy makes me feel like there's a big lag in the definition of "online" compared to other services. I mean, when you say that you get your news online, do you mean that you get it on your computer screen instead of on paper? Or do you, perhaps, mean that you get it all the time? Or maybe even, that  you are connected with tons of current content updates relevant to where you are, what you buy and what you do?

Same goes for online psychotherapy. It is not only that we can reduce the cost of couches and waiting rooms. Not even that a specialist can be accessible around the world. It's some app that tells you that since you started yoga, your anxiety levels lowered consistently, and that people who benefited from yoga like you, also found similar benefits in calling grandma. All this without a session.

*This is where someone shows me I've missed something great and fantastic in my research.