Rob Green - Final Major Project

Some information about behavioural therapy and how it can help people with depression. I feel my app will address some of these therapy techniques:

So how can behavior therapy help you overcome your depression?  Which techniques are used?  The rest of this article lists typical techniques used by behavior therapy to treat depression:

- Decreasing and/or managing the avoiding of events that may contain a damaging stimulus.

- Increasing levels of behavioral productivity through different social and pleasurable activities

- The teaching of relaxation techniques including mental imagery and stress management techniques through positive coping images.

- Developing healthy patterns of self-reinforcement

- Developing cognitive skills to modify self-statements and improving cognitive self-control, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

- Training assertiveness, communication skills, and the use of role play to develop social skills and interpersonal effectiveness.

- Self-monitoring and evaluation of mood and activity levels

Behavior therapy has proven itself to be an effective treatment for depression.  If used in conjunction with other forms of psychotherapy such as cognitive therapy, it can quickly reduce levels of depression, allowing you to live your life to the fullest potential.

http://www.counselor.org/depression.html 

 

I found this article that talks about ways to stop negative thinking. I think that my app idea fits to the socialising with positive thinking people and keeping a negative thought log:

Ways to challenge negative thinking:

Think outside yourself. Ask yourself if you’d say what you’re thinking about yourself to someone else. If not, stop being so hard on yourself. Think about less harsh statements that offer more realistic descriptions.

Allow yourself to be less than perfect. Many depressed people are perfectionists, holding themselves to impossibly high standards and then beating themselves up when they fail to meet them. Battle this source of self-imposed stress by challenging your negative ways of thinking

Socialize with positive people. Notice how people who always look on the bright side deal with challenges, even minor ones, like not being able to find a parking space. Then consider how you would react in the same situation. Even if you have to pretend, try to adopt their optimism and persistence in the face of difficulty.

Keep a “negative thought log." Whenever you experience a negative thought, jot down the thought and what triggered it in a notebook. Review your log when you’re in a good mood. Consider if the negativity was truly warranted. Ask yourself if there’s another way to view the situation. For example, let’s say your boyfriend was short with you and you automatically assumed that the relationship was in trouble. But maybe he’s just having a bad day.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/depression_tips.htm 

Here are some images of doctors that I will use as inspiration when creating my own illustrations:

The Angry Birds francise is hugely popular, but a less-known fact is that it was basically a copy of various other flash games found around the internet. The developers of Angry Birds basically created a brand around their game with an accompanying storyline and combined this with excellent customer support that listens to their users and updates the game accordingly.



The animated video above is an example of this story, that is created alongside the games they release. This particular video is an introduction their new version of the game 'Angry Birds Space' and will even be broadcast on the popular children's TV channel Nickelodeon (very, very smart move!). I think that this kind of brand identity/narrative can be invaluable towards the success of an app, especially in the crowded and continuously expanding virtual app marketplace.

The Rechner app for iPhone is a simple calculator where the operations are chosen using touch gestures. I think that although it won't make much difference to the speed of using the calculator it would be more enjoyable and 'tactile' for the user.

I also like their simple visuals for explaining the different gestures available, I need to start looking at more visual ways to communicate the functionality of my own app designs:

Here are some of the articles I have been reading over:

This book presents an innovative eight-session program designed to prevent relapse in clients who have recovered from depression. Integrating cognitive therapy principles and practice into a mindfulness framework, the approach has been proven effective in controlled clinical research. The authors demonstrate how to teach clients to make a simple but radical shift in their relationship to the thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that contribute to depressive relapse. This shift can help prevent sadness from spiraling out of control. Written in a highly readable, accessible style, the book describes the theoretical basis for the approach and details each of the structured group sessions. It offers practical information on how to duplicate the program, including session curricula, samples of participant handouts, and numerous case examples and session transcripts.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy-Depression-Preventing/dp/1572307064

The Mindful Way through Depression draws on the collective wisdom of four internationally renowned mindfulness experts, including bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn, to provide effective relief from the most prevalent psychological disorder. This authoritative, easy-to-use self-help program is based on methods clinically proven to reduce the recurrence of depression. Revealing the hidden psychological mechanisms that cause chronic unhappiness, the authors gently guide readers through a series of exercises designed to break the mental habits that lead to despair. Kabat-Zinn lends his calm, familiar voice to the accompanying CD of guided meditations, making this a complete package for anyone looking to regain a sense of balance and contentment.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindful-Way-Through-Depression-Unhappiness/dp/1593851286 

It was a sudden awareness that I felt depressed simply because I was used to feeling depressed. I then started to backtrack within my own mind to find root causes of my depression. This is why I referred to my reactive self. All of my anxiety came from a reaction; not from the situation itself. The situation was, in a way, irrelevant.

http://www.articleoutlook.com/dealing-with-depression-through-self-awareness/ 

Client-centered, or person-centered, therapy was established by Carl Rogers in 1940 as an alternative to the existing orientations that relied on guidance or interpretation. Through this non-directive approach to therapy a therapist is able to relay back to the patient what they have expressed so that the patient can identify the changes they would like to make in life. Rogers provided evidence that this process of client self-discovery and actualization occurred in response to the therapist supplying a consistent empathic understanding of the client’s experience, based on the attitude of acceptance and respect.

http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/client-centered-therapy/ 

Cognitive behaviour therapy aims to show people how their thinking affects their mood and to teach them to think in a less negative way about life and themselves. It is based on the understanding that thinking negatively is a habit, and, like any other bad habit, it can be broken.

http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/public/depression/treatments/psychological.cfm

In a recent study of people at risk for relapse in clinical depression, PhD candidate Alisa Singer found that 40 per cent of them could not apply the concept of mindfulness to their own thinking. Mindfulness is the practice of simply being aware of thoughts and emotions, rather than getting caught up in them or analyzing their meaning. 

“Mindfulness helps people step back and recognize that the negative thoughts they are having on a given issue are simply thoughts and may or may not be true,” Singer says. “By acknowledging and accepting such uncomfortable feelings, our research has found that negative moods will dissipate more quickly.” 

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/01/23/15565.aspx

The NHS has already been looking into a digital assistant for patients to use in the form of the National Patient Toolkit. The system is primarily being pushed as a survey tool for patients to rate their treatment at NHS hospitals. I think this is a good sign that the NHS are looking towards digital products to improve their services and that this kind of technology should be used to assist the actual treatment of patients.

The NHS uses forms that patients fill in regarding their mood and temperament to introduce the therapist to the patient. I found an online questionnaire that is similar to the NHS form:

This is the kind of information I want my app to collect to assit the therapist in monitoring their patient's progress.

I need to do more research into how often this information is needed from the patient for the therapist and how helpful it actually is.

Scientists have been working on a new mobile phone that uses information it monitors to tell if you're showing signs of depression and intervenes by suggesting helpful activity, basically becoming a pocket-sized therapist. Here's a quote taken from an article over on Mashable:

The phone called Mobilyze! is still in the works, but a small trial run has indicated that it is effective in reducing signs of depression. The device is able to read your mood thanks to sensor data that interprets your location, activity level (via an accelerometer), social context and mood, ultimately detecting signs of depression. The phone learns your typical lifestyle patterns, and notices if you are making calls and getting emails. If it thinks you are creating an isolating environment, it will suggest that you call or see friends.

This shows that mobile technology can help in this field of medicine as it has constant contact with the patient, something that could assist traditional therapists with their analysis and treatment of patients.