Interactive psychological analysis methods within a web-based intervention for wellbeing management

Web-based mental health interventions are becoming commonplace, but interactive capabilities offered by the Internet are still relatively underutilized. Several face-to-face therapy methods include free-form drawing and mind mapping, whereas web-based self-help programs still comprise of mostly questionnaires or text-based forms. We have designed a service concept utilizing a web portal and personal health technologies to support the delivery of psychological mini-interventions for self-management of psychophysiological wellbeing. Within the portal, an intervention path consisting of several analysis tools has been implemented. Among the analyses are social atom based on Interpersonal Therapy and analysis of values based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Social atom is a drawing application for the analysis of social relationships and their quality. Analysis of values is a mind map like application for assessing personally important factors of life and wellbeing and aiding in setting goals to improve these factors. The methods have been built into rich Internet applications using modern web technologies. Transferring these tools into web platform provides several benefits. Guidance in filling the analyses can be provided informatively; feedback can be generated automatically and visualized to emphasize various perspectives; analysis diagrams are modifiable and different versions are comparable over time; analyses can be made without therapist participation, but when needed, they are sharable with a therapist and consultation can be relayed through the portal interface. The findings from small-scale evaluation studies focusing both on the feasibility of the tools in actual therapy use and on their usability and acceptance in self-help will be presented