Do you feel stressed Maybe you have too much pressure at the office, school, or an overwhelming amount of tension from every day life. If you own a smartphone, there may be an app to help! There is currently a program under development that diagnoses mental health issues, mostly social anxiety disorders. A team of analysts at Harvard University are working on creating a smartphone that can help treat social anxiety.
This app was cultivated by an Australian psychologist and uses similar techniques as the patient would undergo in a psychologist’s office. The consumer is shown two faces on their screen; one kind and one adverse. Afterward, the program combines the two faces together, and then flashes a letter that you need to identify.
This treatment is called cognitive bias modification (CBM). This has been used to treat a variety of patients (children and adults) with different disorders.
The theory is that people who suffer with social anxiety tend to focus on the hostile faces in a crowd. This app assists in breaking this complex by re-training and significantly decreasing anxiety. In fact, there is another app featured that helps alcoholics by having them push away digital booze.
The new smartphone app reduced the patient’s anxiety by 22 points, compared to an 8 point drop by individuals who did not use the app. Although this app is making great strides to help those with social anxiety, many people would prefer to visit their doctor.
