Therapist training in video chat technology for use in an adaptive digital mental health intervention: Challenges,facilitators and implications for training models

Objective

This qualitative study investigated therapist training experiences, elements of skill acquisition, and barriers and facilitators associated with conducting assessments, and the delivery of low- and high-intensity therapist assistance delivered via video chat technology, adjunctive to a transdiagnostic digital mental health intervention programme for anxiety and depression.

Methodology

In total, 34 semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 therapists. Twenty interviews explored experiences of training to administer a clinical assessment tool, and 14 additional interviews explored training experiences of delivering low- and high-intensity therapist assistance via video chat technology.

Results

Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: video chat skill acquisition, competencies transferrable to video chat and video chat service quality. Training and supervision were identified as important to scaffold skill development, and therapists described surprise that their skill set was transferrable to video chat. The most cited barrier to the adoption of video chat was the management of risk and distress, along with environmental suitability. Frequently cited facilitators to the adoption of video chat included stable Internet connection, protocols and resources.

Conclusion

The benefits of video chat technology and digital mental health interventions can be maximised through the expansion and integration of training into existing teaching curricula. If therapists are familiarised and competent to deliver mental health services via the Internet, as well as in person, the future adoption of blended and stepped-care models is likely to be increased.     

Sexual Violence Victimization and Associations with Health in a Community Sample of African American Women

Limited information exists on the relationship between sexual violence victimization and health among African American women. Using data from a community sample of African American women, we examine the association between current health and lifetime experiences of sexual violence. In-person interviews were completed in 2010. Among interviewees, 53.7% of women reported rape victimization and 44.8% reported sexual coercion in their lifetime. Victims of rape or sexual coercion were significantly more likely to report depression and posttraumatic stress disorder during their lifetime. Among victims whose first unwanted sexual experience was rape or sexual coercion, perpetrators were mostly acquaintances and intimate partners, and over one third were injured and needed services. More attention is needed on the health needs of African American women and their association to victimization status.     

Do multicultural experiences facilitate global processing style?

The current research explores whether multicultural experiences facilitate global processing style. We conducted two experiments in which participants were exposed to either a multicultural experience or a monocultural experience. They were required to either perform the Navon letter task (Experiment 1) or search for similarities or differences between two videos (Experiment 2). The experimental results showed that, compared to the participants exposed to a monocultural experience, those exposed to a multicultural experience had faster reaction times to global letters (Experiment 1) and tended to search for similarities (Experiment 2). This indicates that individuals with multicultural experiences facilitate a global processing style. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, Asian Association of Social Psychology and Beijing Normal University     

Potentially Traumatic Experiences,Academic Performance,and Psychological Distress: The Role of Shame

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of shame associated with previous potentially traumatic experiences, satisfaction with academic performance, and psychological distress among college students (N = 245) in Mainland China. Results indicated that previous experiences of potentially traumatic events were directly related to depressive symptoms and indirectly related through characterological shame and hopelessness. In addition, characterological shame and bodily shame were 2 distinct forms of shame that had unique associations with psychological distress.     

MATURE CONTEMPLATION

Abstract. This chapter extends biogenetic structural theory to a consideration of the biopsychological principles underlying higher phases of consciousness, particularly those attained by the systematic exploration of consciousness called contemplation. The concepts of psychic energy, flow, centeredness, energy circulation, and dreambody are explored as presented in various mystical traditions, and a model of the underlying neurophysiology is presented in terms of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning. The psychophysiology of various forms of meditation together with emergent peak experiences is examined and integrated into the ergotropic-trophotropic tuning model. Structural invariance of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning as well as invariant aspects of contemplation across different cultures and associated with different symbol systems is considered. Finally the nature and implications of Void Consciousness, God Consciousness, or Abssolute Unitary Being are examined.     

Psychosocial response to COVID‐19 pandemic in India: Helpline counsellors’ experiences and perspectives

The COVID‐19 pandemic presents a threat to physical and psychosocial health of individuals. In lieu of the subsequent lockdown and containment measures, helpline counselling becomes a viable method of accessing psychosocial services during the pandemic. The present paper describes experiences of counsellors working with a special COVID‐19 counselling helpline initiated by iCALL, a national‐level technology‐assisted counselling service of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India, which aims to address the psychosocial impact of the pandemic and the lockdown. The paper is based on two focus group interviews held with 11 counsellors during the initial two months of the helpline's functioning. Findings of the study highlight the diverse profile of the callers, with individuals belonging to different strata of society and to marginalised communities. The nature of concerns presented by the callers were often a mix of psychological, relational and practical issues. The resultant distress emanated from an interplay of these factors with the relational contexts, their social locations and social structures the individuals were embedded in. This highlighted the need for conceptualising and responding from a psychosocial lens, whereby interventions involved traditional counselling approaches and strategies for addressing determinants of distress by connecting callers to required ground‐level resources. Counsellors’ engagement with this process impacted their professional and personal selves, necessitating the need for structured and continuous training, supervision and support. At a larger level, the counsellors’ narratives asserted the need for adopting a psychosocial paradigm for conceptualising and addressing mental health concerns in India.     

A taxonomy for scenes

Tomkins [Tomkins, S. (1979). Script theory: Differential magnification of affects. In: C. Keasey (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Vol. 26 (pp. 201–236). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; Tomkins, S. (1987). Script theory. In: J. Aronoff, A. Rabin, & R. Zucker (Eds.), The Emergence of Personality (pp. 147–216). New York: Springer] proposed that personality is built from the experience of scenes, which minimally consist of an emotion and an event evoking that emotion. This study sought to identify a taxonomy of emotion-eliciting events. Examples of specific events eliciting love, joy, sadness, anger, and fear were collected from 200 participants, another 120 participants independently sorted these examples for similarity, and a hierarchical cluster analysis was run on these similarity sorts. The resulting tree diagram displayed categories of events at varying levels of abstraction. Individual differences were found in the types of events offered for each of the five emotions.     

The Near-Death Experience: Knowledge and Attitudes of College Students

There is a considerable literature documenting the effects of a near-death experience (NDE) on persons who actually undergo the experience, in terms of their attitudes and opinions about NDEs. However, investigations of how much nonexperiencers know about NDEs and their attitudes towards them are in short supply. This study examined the relationship in people who have not had an NDE between attitudes toward and knowledge of near-death experiences. Subjects were undergraduate students, with a mean age of 32 years. The Near-Death Phenomena Knowledge and Attitudes Questionnaire was employed to assess attitudes toward and knowledge of NDEs. Results indicated that both knowledge and attitudes were relatively normally distributed, and that level of knowledge significantly predicted attitudes towards NDEs, accounting for 34 percent of the common variance.