Japanese get mobile phone psycotherapy

DEPRESSING TIMES CALL for desperate measures especially, it seems, in Japan, where a Professor has just launched web-based psychotherapy sessions accessible by mobile phone.

Japanese citizens with a bad case of “heart flu”, otherwise known as depression, can call up an interactive service which assesses the seriousness of the problem by asking a series of questions about the person’s sleeping and eating habits, weight change, and emotional well-being.

The depressed are then offered seven mini chapters to listen to which can help them lighten up, relax and feel more optimistic through problem solving and self assertion. The service does warn, however, that it isn’t a substitute for proper medical treatment if the depression is more than a mild one.

Using mobile phones for just about everything - from buying train tickets to paying for shopping, to reading and watching TV - the Japanese are used to them being one stop shops to solve any problem, which is why Professor Yutaka Ohno of Keio University decided they would be perfect.

Ohno told AFP "Psychotherapy is not widespread in Japan. This is mostly because hospitals focus on treating depression clinically and psychotherapy is not covered by the medical insurance plan".

Perhaps delivering help in a mobile flavor will reduce Japan’s astoundingly high suicide rate, estimated at over 30,000 deaths in 2007 alone. µ

L’Inq
AFP