AI-Therapy news « The AI-Therapy Blog

More great news from AI-Therapy! There are currently several studies in progress designed to test how well the program works. The latest study, from the University of British Columbia, is showing impressive results, adding to the growing pile of evidence backing up the program. These preliminary results are based on students who participated in a randomized controlled trial. The work was led by Dr. Frances Chen and Dr. Chris Richardson, with Hugh McCall and Keith Patena running the day-to-day operations. Hugh will be presenting a poster on the preliminary results at two UBC research conferences (MURC & PURC).

The predecessor to AI-Therapy was created during my PhD from 2007-2011. For my thesis I designed and programmed (in PHP!) a program targeting social anxiety among those who stutter. After completing my studies I saw enormous potential for this field. I wanted to build state-of-the-art, evidence-based mental health treatment programs available to the everyone. Therefore, in August 2012 I launched AI-Therapy with the rebuilt “Overcome Social Anxiety” treatment program.

Since our launch in 2012 we have been growing organically, without external investment. The reduction in social anxiety symptoms we see among our users has been fantastic. For the statistical nerds out there, the effect size is 1.8, which is exceptional. However, user data is not a replacement for proper randomized control trials. Therefore, these latest results from UBC are an exciting validation of what we are seeing with our users.

These are exciting times for AI-Therapy, and the field of computerized therapy as a whole. I’ll leave you with some of the most recent testimonials from our users:

“Very informative and helpful program that I highly recommend for everyone suffering from social phobia. It encouraged me to really work on my disorder and I made huge progress! I’ve been going to a therapist and using medicine for quite a while but this I believe has been the most effective of all.”(Guðrún, 19, Iceland)
“Excellent resource, well worth it. I have tried many different CBT programs, workbooks, various therapists, and many different medications. AI-therapy has been the most effective of any of these!”(CM, 31, United States)
“Excellent course which shows deep understanding of the problems of social anxiety. I have learnt very much and would recommend this course. There are many strategies it recommends for dealing with this problem. It is written by experts in psychology. I have no hesitation in recommending this well structured course.”(Anonymous)
“Nothing else has ever helped me as much as this CBT program. I struggled with social anxiety for most of my life, and it has certainly held me back from experiencing life to its fullest. I began this program feeling very hopeless about my situation, thinking nothing could change my mindset and that my life would never be worth much. Now, I have the tools to fight the anxious thoughts and feel very confident about my future.” (Anonymous).

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD is a registered psychologist at the Vancouver CBT Centre, who has previously worked in Australia and at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. She is AI-Therapy’s director and co-creator of AI-Therapy’s Overcome Social Anxiety. Twitter: @drfjola

We are very pleased to announce our latest collaboration, which is with Dr. Frances Chen and Dr. Chris Richardson of the University of British Columbia (UBC). We will be evaluating AI-Therapy’s cognitive behavior program within the university’s undergraduate student population.

3 years ago I wrote about blog titled: “Is diagnosis necessary for online treatment?“. My answer was no. I believe that anyone can benefit from CBT strategies, whether or not they have an official diagnosis. CBT helps people make better choices in their day to day lives, often leading to an overall improvement in happiness and confidence.

The UBC trial will provide the online social anxiety program to people who have elevated scores on social anxiety, not necessarily a social anxiety diagnosis. We are excited to see the outcome of this research.

The past few months have been slow on the AI-Therapy blog, but rest assured that we’ve been very busy. We have reached some major milestones.

Science Magazine

In July we were featured in a Science Magazine special issue on Artificial Intelligence. The article is called “The synthetic therapist”, and gives an overview of the current state of the art for administering evidence based clinical psychology via computerized therapy. The article describes an Overcome Social Anxiety user’s experience with the program:

[…] the program assumed the role of full-fledged therapist, guiding her through a regimen of real-world exercises for taking control. It sounds like a typical success story for clinical psychology. But no human psychologist was involved.

There is an open access podcast where the author, John Bohannon, shares his thoughts on the field (a link can be found on this page). The article itself is behind a paywall, but can be downloaded here for those with institutional access (note the article refers to AI-Therapy as CBTpsych, which is its original name).

Granville Youth Health Centre, Vancouver Canada

AI-Therapy is excited to announce that we have received a grant from St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation’s Enhanced Patient Care Fund. The Inner City Youth Program provides care for at-risk youth in Vancouver’s inner-city area. We will be working with ICY to develop an online social anxiety treatment specifically targeted towards this population. Stay tuned for more updates on this.

For my PhD I created an online social anxiety treatment for people who stutter or stammer. The results were fantastic. In fact, they were so good that Ross Menzies and I wanted to make the tool available for everyone with social anxiety, and that’s how AI-Therapy was born.

AI-Therapy now has hundreds of users from all over the world, and our results (technically known as the program’s “effect size“) have been just as strong as the original PhD version. Actually, they are even more promising as they are now based on a larger population of users.

Statistics aside, it’s also important to hear people’s stories. Unfortunately, the nature of social anxiety makes it difficult for those who suffer to speak openly about the problems. Therefore, I was extremely excited to (quite randomly) come across the following article:

How cognitive behaviour therapy helped me

It was written by a user of my PhD program, and talks about the impact CBT has had on his life. I found it humbling that the program I created made such a difference to someone who has lived with social anxiety for over 70 years.

Here are a few quotes:

The programme was one of the great events of my life. It acknowledged that people who stammer often have undesirable thoughts and beliefs and I was shown how to change these. The results were immediate. The major item I picked up from the programme was the dropping of safety behaviours.

Shortly after the course finished I attended a dinner with 25 people. Normally this would involve the minimum of social conversation from me. On this occasion I made use of the techniques I had picked up and talked just about non-stop and on several occasions I was told to stop talking and eat as everyone was waiting for me to finish my meal so they could have the next course served.

Each conversation that I approach I now face with determination and courage. No longer do I stand back and rehearse what I am going to say before saying it. I have become very outspoken and have no problem at all in speaking up at meetings to add to the discussion. People I have met since completing the CBT programme have no idea that I stammer and when I tell them they are amazed by my story of how CBT changed my life.

I highly recommend you read his whole story. As I mentioned, AI-Therapy’s Overcome Social Anxiety program has been enhanced to be suitable for anyone with social anxiety. I hope it continues to change lives.

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, CPsychol, is a clinical psychologist, who has worked in Australia and at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. She is AI-Therapy’s director and co-creator of AI-Therapy’s Overcome Social Anxiety program and the creator of Overcome Fertility Stress. Twitter: @drfjola

Several hundreds of people from all over the world have already benefited from the program! We’ve had users from 28 different countries, and here is a message for each one:

Australia: Happy New Year! (does anyone know how to say this in an Aboriginal language?)
Bahrain: سنة جديدة سعيدة
Belgium: Gelukkig nieuwjaar, Ein glückliches neues Jahr!, Bonne année!
Canada: Happy New Year!, Bonne année!
China: 新年快樂!
Denmark: Godt NytÅr!
France: Bonne année!
Germany: Ein glückliches neues Jahr!
Iceland: Gleðilegt ár!
Ireland: Happy New Year, bhliain nua sásta!
Israel: שנה טובה ומבורכת and سنة جديدة سعيدة
Japan: 明けましておめでとうございます
Luxembourg: Bonne année!, Ein glückliches neues Jahr! (is there another term in Luxembourgish?)
New Zealand: Happy New Year!, Tau Hou oaoa!
Norway: Godt Nytt År!
Qatar: سنة جديدة سعيدة
Poland: Szczesliwego Nowego Roku!
Saudi Arabia: سنة جديدة سعيدة
Slovenia: srečno novo leto!
Singapore: Happy New Year, Selamat Tahun Baru, புத்தாண்டு, 新年快樂
South Korea:새해 복 많이 받으세요
Spain: Feliz año nuevo!
Sweden: Gott Nytt År!
Switzerland: Bonne année!, Ein glückliches neues Jahr!, Buon Anno!, (does anyone know how to say this in Romansh?)
United Arab Emirates: سنة جديدة سعيدة
United Kingdom: Happy New Year!
United States of America: Happy New Year!
Vietnam: Chúc mừng năm mới

We have been a little quiet on the blogging and social media fronts over the past few months. This is because we’ve been working hard on our latest product: Overcome Fertility Stress. This is a program that is designed to help women cope with the emotional stress and anxiety the often accompanies trying to conceive. As with our other programs, Overcome Fertility Stress is online and fully automated.

Our goal is to make this the best program possible, so we’ve opened it up for free to everyone. We’ve already received a lot of great feedback which is helping us streamline the program.

One of the advantages of online programs is that the content can be updated and improved in real time (unlike books, which are frozen the second they are printed). Our Overcome Social Anxiety program has now helped hundreds of users tackle their social anxiety, and we’ve learned some valuable lessons along the way.

One thing we’ve learned is the importance of anonymity. Giving honest feedback can be hard in a time when everything seems to be linked to your Facebook profile. We’ve decided to go the opposite direction: when you sign up to the program you don’t need to tell us your real name. We hope that this will encourage our users to be completely open, in a way that is difficult when speaking publicly.

If you would like to sign up, or find out more, please follow this link: Overcome Fertility Stress

Also, if you know of anyone who might find the program useful, please share the link.

We’ve been very busy at AI-Therapy over the past few months. In this post we will summarize some of the new developments.

Icelandic TV Appearance

I was interviewed for the evening news in Iceland a few weeks ago:

During the interview I gave a demonstration of AI-Therapy’s social anxiety treatment program, and announced our new program in development called Overcome Fertility Related Stress (see below).

Fertility Survey

I have started working on a new treatment program for people who are struggling with the emotional aspects of conception and fertility problems. I’ve created a survey, and the information I gather will be used to ensure that the program is helpful for a wide range of people:

http://www.ai-therapy.com/treatments/fertility/

Those who participate in the survey will be given the opportunity to be beta testers for the program when it is ready.

AI-Therapy Site License for Clinics, Therapists and Other Organizations

Site licenses are now available for our social anxiety treatment program. More information can be found here:

http://www.ai-therapy.com/therapist-and-clinic-site-license

Overcome OCD

Ross Menzies and I are developing a treatment program for people who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If you would like to be kept up to date on this project, please register your interest here:

http://www.ai-therapy.com/treatments/ocd/

Fjola Helgadottir, PhD, MClinPsych, is a clinical psychologist, a senior research clinician at the University of Oxford, and is a co-creator of AI-Therapy.com, an online CBT treatment program for overcoming social anxiety

The AI-Therapy Blog

Category Archives: AI-Therapy news

AI-Therapy news: Featured in Science Magazine and a new collaboration!

Science Magazine

Granville Youth Health Centre, Vancouver Canada

28 countries with Overcome Social Anxiety users

AI-Therapy update: you can now try our fertility stress program for free!