The development of Psy apps; mobile applications as tools for self help for psychological problems, are a promising new area to explore both for mental health professionals and patients.

1. “ Psy apps ”
New (but better) Vine in old Bottles
Svein Oeverland
Psychologist and entrepreneur
Superego.as
www.psykologivirkeligheten.blogspot.no
Twitter: @sveinoeverland

2. Change
• The world is changing
• The speed is increasing
• The rules are evolving

3. The new reality

4. Internet has changed it all

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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”.

10. 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

11. 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”

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

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

14. My office in Real Life

15. My office in SecondLife

16. Simulated environments

17. 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).

18. 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

19. The StopSelfHarm app

20. 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

22. 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

23. 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.

24. Virtual Reality is ”the new world”

25. 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

27. Good luck to us all!