December 2011 - Issue #14
Mental health researcher an e-pioneer
Story by Karin Derkley
View articles in related topics: Health & Medical, Computing, Social Inclusion
It was while studying to be a teacher that Professor Britt Klein realised she was far more concerned with the mental health and wellbeing of the students than she was in teaching them maths or English.
Completing her honours degree in psychology, she and her supervisor, the late Professor Jeff Richards, saw the potential of newly emerging online services to help people with panic and anxiety disorders.
Even so, her early presentations in 1998 on the topic were greeted with some scepticism by the academic community.
“People found it hard to see past the traditional model of a client meeting a therapist face-to-face,” she says. However, it soon became clear that consumer demand and the positive results of those using online treatment programs supported her hypothesis.
Over the past 14 years Professor Klein has developed and evaluated numerous online mental health and wellbeing programs.
“It’s about giving people as much choice as possible regarding the way they would like to receive psychological assistance,” says Professor Klein, Director of the Swinburne National e-Therapy Centre.
The increased speed and pervasiveness of the internet has helped, as has funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.
“We’ve been very fortunate to have received the funding that we have over the years and hope to offer all registered healthcare professionals ‘therapist’ access to the infrastructure, enabling them to work with their clients using all the current and upcoming Anxiety Online programs, tools and features.”
Broad dissemination of e-mental health technologies is a very important way of giving people access to timely mental health assistance, Professor Klein says.
