Mental health and eHealth technology
1. What are different types of eMental health interventions?
Internet websites, massive open online interventions, mobile applications, games like serious games
and gamification, social media and virtual reality.
2. What are their possibilities/benefits?
When users have sufficient self-management skills, they benefit from completing the CBT based
modules, which are drawn from evidence-based practices.
Massive open online interventions lead to increased scalability and lower costs compared to
traditional methods.
Mobile applications could increase engagement, since people bring it everywhere and use it more
and more. This way, they can learn new skills to implement in their daily lives straight away.
Games can boost intrinsic motivation and well-being if they meet our basic needs, but more research
is needed to best guide the use of gamified principles. Serious games might appeal to a wider
audience than traditional interventions, for example youth.
Social media can be effective, since peers can be important contributors to mental health platforms
due to their shared experience with disorders.
Virtual reality is effective for treating anxiety with exposure, maybe even more effective than
exposure in vivo. It is also less reliant on someone’s time, so it could provide a larger dose of
treatment.
3. What is said about blended care?
Blended care aims to increase the impact of interventions by shifting the responsibilities for care to
the mental health platforms. Many patients and therapists prefer practical elements of therapy to be
accomplished through technology, like homework or psychoeducation. Computer-assisted therapy
seems to increase knowledge of CBT and decrease dysfunctional cognitions. This way, therapists can
spend more time focusing on more advanced topics and technological tools emphasize
self-management and allow for repeated practice. But, blended care is not yet implemented very
often/well.
4. What are the issues in implementing eMental health in daily practices?
People do not use it (or transfer the knowledge) when they move into real-world settings.
, 5. What are potential solutions?
A solution could be to include human support, but this increases costs and reduces scalability.
Further research should identify ways of implementing blended care into practice, while increasing
adherence and decreasing costs. Research shows that support is beneficial, but the largest benefits
are not found from the supporters with the most expertise or the ones who devote the most time.
Instead, too much support might impact a patient’s motivation, reduce autonomy and opportunities
for learning. It might be better to add more persuasive features to automated technological features
and increase the adherence to and effectiveness of unsupported interventions this way!
What is compassion and how can we measure it?
1. What is the new definition of compassion?
Compassion is a cognitive, affective and behavioral process consisting of 5 elements:
● Recognizing suffering
● Understanding the universality of suffering in human experience
● Feeling empathy for the person suffering and connecting with the distress
● Toleration uncomfortable feelings aroused in response to the suffering person so remaining
open to and accepting the person suffering
● Motivation to act/acting to alleviate suffering
2. How is this definition created?
The word compassion stems from suffering with. It involves an affective and behavioral component.
Kanov stated that compassion is also a cognitive concept, because it involves being able to imagine
and reason about one’s experiences. Gilbert also added the elements of distress tolerance and
non-judgement to the definition. Neff created a model about self-compassion and Pommier applied
this to other-compassion. All these definitions see compassion as awareness of someone’s suffering,
being moved by it and acting to help. It also consists of being able to tolerate uncomfortable feelings
that arise in oneself. Besides this, compassion entails acknowledging that we could find ourselves in
a similar position.
3. Why is compassion important in healthcare?
It has an evolutionary function, since caring and nurturing protects the young, it is beneficial in mate
selection and it facilitates cooperative relationships with others. Also, it improves clinical outcomes,
increases patient satisfaction with services and enhances the quality of information gathered from
patients. Besides this, being self-compassionate acts as a buffer against stress and facilitates
recovery from disorders, so it improves well-being, and it is related to a secure attachment and the
capacity to act compassionately in adulthood.
, 4. What does Neff state about self-compassion and other-compassion?
Self-compassion is compassion directed inwards and consists of 3 components: kindness
(non-judgmental), mindfulness (not overidentifying) and common humanity (could happen to
everyone). Self-compassion is only weakly related to other-compassion.
5. What is the relationship between compassion and empathy?
Empathy has a cognitive and affective component, like compassion, but it does not have a behavioral
component. Also, empathy can be felt for someone who is feeling happy, while compassion is felt in
response to suffering.
The role of compassionate technology in blended and digital mental health interventions
1. What are the 3 compassionate roles in which technology can support compassion in mental
healthcare?
● Showing compassion to the client - Express empathy to the user.
● Enhancing self-compassion in people - Enhance self-compassion in the user.
● Facilitate compassion between people (therapist and client) - Foster the therapeutic alliance
by facilitating compassion.
2. What are examples of how technology can support the different components of compassion
based on the included articles in the review?
Showing compassion could be done by an agent who communicates to the user in a compassionate
way. Enhancing self-compassion in people could be done by providing an intervention focused on
enhancing self-compassion to decrease psychological symptoms. Facilitating compassion could be
done by a therapeutic robot that acts as a social agent between pediatric patients and their parents
in robot-assisted therapy.
3. How could compassionate technology play a role in blended treatment?
Showing compassion in blended care could be done by a social robot that functions as an assistant
to the therapist in psychomotor therapy. Enhancing self-compassion could be done by sending SMS
text messages to enhance a physical psychological intervention on self-compassion. Facilitating
compassion could be done by integrating a VR intervention that was used in physical sessions with a
counselor.
4. What are the opportunities for compassion and technology?
