November/December 2016
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The Next Big Thing
Psychotherapy and the Virtual Revolution
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Editor's Note
In this issue, our contributors reveal, in ways that were all quite stunning to me, the magnitude and vast social implications—for us and our profession—of the dizzyingly new psycho-digital world we’re entering, including the expanding universe of mental health apps for every conceivable presenting problem.
Left to Our Own Devices
Sorting Through The Bewildering World Of Therapeutic Apps
Mobile apps offer tools for everything from depression, social anxiety, and binge eating to phobias, OCD, postpartum problems, and substance abuse recovery. In some cases, they’re even being marketed as actual providers of therapy, or at least therapy-like help. Since solace-by-app is here to stay, what do therapists need to know? Read More
The Empathy Gap
Digital Culture Needs What Talk Therapy Offers
Conditioned by the experience of life on the screen, clients today find it harder to concentrate on face-to-face conversation. They may not even see its value, feeling more comfortable with the self they can present through their digital devices. More than ever, the mores of therapy—the value therapy places on being with, forming an empathic bond, and the quiet attention necessary to do this—has become a crucial cultural corrective. Read More
Is VR a Game Changer?
Virtual Reality in Therapy
To date, virtual reality’s most visible therapeutic role has been in the treatment of phobias and other conditions where it’s served as an adjunct to imaginary and in-vivo modalities. However, newer applications have started to move beyond the idea of altering our sense of place to emphasize altering our very sense of self. So what will that mean for our field? Read More
Caught in a Web
A World Where Life Is Always Elsewhere
Every day, every moment, we must wade through the flood of incoming alerts and emails urgently demanding our time and attention, all the while knowing that there’s an infinite ocean of stuff online that waits for us at all hours to stick our toe in so that it may then slowly begin to swallow us up . . . until we drown. Read More
