Re: How Does That Make You Feel?

Living life online might make us more fractious and distracted and sad but -- luckily! -- it can also make us feel better.

At least that's what researchers at Sydney's University of New South Wales have discovered. They've found that Internet-based therapy works as well as in-person treatment for combating depression -- and it works even though their test-case is called the "Sadness Program."

According to Gavin Andrews, the lead author of the study, the program's principal attraction is that people can seek treatment wherever they have Internet access. No rushing out during the workday, no struggling to find child care: It's help on demand, presented via homework assignments and e-mail with a mental health clinician. The program includes online lessons presented in the form of an illustrated story about a woman struggling with depression -- kind of like low-budget Pixar psychotherapy.

Another benefit of the program, aside from its convenience, is the limited stigma associated with logging on to seek treatment. There's no office waiting room to navigate, just an online treatment module. And, though the program was carefully designed by humans, it isn't one. So it boasts a certain logic that human practitioners sometimes lack. "The computer does not get distracted by your daily hassles," Andrews said.

And you might not get distracted, either. There is evidence that people are more honest over the Web than in person, Andrews said. "They fake good [cheer] to seek the approval of their doctor and probably don't care about the computer," he said. The researchers are focused now on broadening the program and putting it to use by primary care physicians who treat people with anxiety or depressive disorders. They are also thinking about how it might be used by remote populations in Australia or people in combat zones who are coping with combat stress, Andrews said.

The work they've done is new, but it may sound familiar to anyone who has met a ladylike computer program named ELIZA.

She wasn't a computer game, exactly. She just always knew what was wrong.

Named for Eliza Doolittle of "My Fair Lady," the program simulated a conversation between a psychotherapist and a patient. It was designed to respond to keywords in the questions it was asked -- therapy as virtual call and response. MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum developed ELIZA in the 1960s as a way to illustrate the possibilities for human-machine interactions. "Machines are made to behave in wondrous ways, often sufficient to dazzle even the most experienced observer," he once said. And ELIZA did dazzle. The computer program with the Pygmalion namesake did seem to be a good listener. She wasn't really, of course. But she was always available.

Here's a version of ELIZA that seems much like the original. Until Andrews et. al. make their program more widely available, it's a good place to start.

-- Rachel Dry