Advancing mental health care and access through technology

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Accelerated by impacts of the global pandemic, technology is rapidly and positively shifting practices in mental health care. While COVID-19 has exacerbated mental health challenges, says Martin M. Antony, director of the Anxiety Research and Treatment Lab at Ryerson University, and co-author of The Anti-Anxiety Program, the development of online cognitive-behavioural therapy is providing new opportunities and broader access for those seeking help.

“Technology offers us an opportunity to provide treatment to more people and to those who might not otherwise be able to get it.

“We know that waitlists for publicly funded psychotherapy are very long,” says Dr. Antony, a past president of both the Canadian Psychological Association and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. “Fortunately, there are less expensive, publicly funded, lower-intensity offerings, such as internet-based self-directed therapy.”

Especially when supported by a therapist, the outcomes are impressive, says Dr. Antony.

“Highly controlled studies generally found these approaches to be effective for depression and a range of anxiety problems, including social anxiety and shyness, panic disorder, worry-based problems, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Virtual-reality-based technology is also providing therapists with new tools, says Dr. Antony.

For example, he explains, someone who feels anxious flying can wear a headset that simulates the experience of being on an airplane. “There’s strong evidence that this type of exposure therapy works for a range of fears and phobias.”

Dr. Antony anticipates that “we’re going to see big changes over the next five years in how we use virtual reality and augmented reality for the realm of therapy. The future will also bring an increased role for machine learning and further advances in artificial intelligence,” he predicts.

Candice M. Monson, a professor of psychology at Ryerson University, agrees that “harnessing technology has strong potential in enhancing access to and quality of care.”

As a clinical psychologist, she recognizes the geographical, logistical and financial benefits of virtual care and online video-based therapy. She says that managing through COVID has forced people to become more tech savvy, and it has helped clinicians see the merits of online therapy.

Dr. Monson, an expert on traumatic stress and treating PTSD, has helped lead teams on a number of innovations that she refers to as “self-guided help interventions.”

Couple HOPES is an online self-help program designed with Skye Fitzpatrick and Anne Wagner to assist people with PTSD and their partners. RESTORE, based on cognitive behavioural therapies for PTSD, anxiety and depression, was created under the leadership of Kathryn Trottier, University Health Network, to help meet the needs of health-care and other frontline workers.

A third project, Dr. Monson says she is also very excited about, is a mental health startup aimed at delivering evidence-based treatment. Nellie Health facilitates therapy through virtual and self-guided formats.

“We’re trying to pull back the curtain on psychotherapy, adding more assurance and transparency to ensure it’s easier for people to access effective treatments.”

While Dr. Monson says it’s important to advance the self-directed side of intervention, she stresses that “you can’t take out the human touch.” Online interventions perform significantly better when supported by therapists and trained professionals, she says.

“It’s a matter of trying to optimize that nexus of technology and human and to answer the question, ‘How might we use technology to improve people’s lives?’”

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