A recent blog post by Tom Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health discusses how technology is changing the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Dr. Insel discusses various methods: videoconferencing and telephone psychotherapy, web-based interventions, and mobile technologies, that are currently being used in the service of reducing mental illness. At the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies at Northwestern University, we are involved in the development and evaluation of many of these methods and have found them to be effective to help manage and treat the symptoms of several mental disorders. At this time, however, a bulk of our work has focused on the treatment and prevention of depression and I will discuss this work in more detail.

In a trial comparing telephone-administered cognitive-behavioral therapy to face-to-face treatment, we found that both treatments were effective at reducing depressive symptoms with no difference between them.  Furthermore, people receiving the telephone-administered therapy were able to form a strong connection with therapists, suggesting that the telephone-therapy does not undermine the therapeutic alliance. We have also found web-based treatments can effectively reduce depressive symptoms. Many web-based interventions, however, include many lessons and tools and encourage people to return to the site repeatedly over several weeks. In the absence of human support, sustaining this level of activity can be difficult, and we have paired many of our web-based interventions with brief weekly contact from a therapist or coach. This contact can help people stay motivated and learn the content and skills provided via the web-based intervention. Indeed, those who received telephone calls from a coach were more likely to use the web-based intervention and persisted with it for a longer period of time.

We are increasingly moving from web-based interventions to mobile platforms (i.e., smartphone applications) to move therapeutic skills from the confines of the therapy office or one's own home into people's daily interactions. People have responded positively to receiving regular automatic text messages that reinforce themes from therapy and these messages appear helpful at reducing depressive symptoms overtime. A further mobile application that provided suggestions to help people manage their mood throughout the day was also beneficial at reducing depressive symptoms with a small group of pilot users. As such, we are continuing to develop several applications focused on helping support people to use mood management techniques throughout their day.

Similar resources have been development for the self-management of schizophrenia. A smartphone system designed by one of our collaborators, Dror Ben-Zeev, PhD, which we developed, targets medication adherence, mood regulation, sleep, social functioning, and coping with systems. As support for these systems grow we hope they will be more widely available for more people who might benefit from them.

Technological interventions are by no means replacing face-to-face psychotherapy. However, for those who have substantial barriers to accessing face-to-face services or might benefit from the additional support of having self-management tools available throughout the day, these resources serve to significantly impact the treatment of mental illness. If you're interested in learning more and staying updated about our resources you can like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter (@CBITs_NU), you can also learn more about our research studies at this link. No one solution exists to eliminate the burden placed on people's lives by mental illness. However, expanding the options of available resources expands the possibility that those in need will receive help.