Illness self-management

Illness self-management refers to a range of psychosocial interventions aiming to empower people to manage their own mental health, including:

  • psychological or talking therapies (e.g. cognitive behavioural therapy)
  • skills-based interventions (e.g. mindfulness training)
  • self-guided online and mobile app-based interventions
  • bio- and neurofeedback-based interventions
  • peer-to-peer interventions (e.g. peer support and online peer communities)

Our use of the term illness self-management rather than psychological therapy reflects that significant innovation in this field is extending beyond the traditional format of face-to-face talking based therapies.

Additionally, as our population ages, we have an accompanying increased proportion of people living with chronic medical conditions, the concept of self-management is of growing importance to medical illnesses as well as mental health.

Online and mobile interventions are a key growth area in mental health, and in promoting self-management of chronic medical problems. This field provides options for more widespread implementation of health interventions than has been achieved through traditional psychotherapies.

Interventions are evolving from web-based self-help programs, through programs for mobile phone devices, to interventions that integrate mobile apps with phone-based and wearable sensors.

Mental Health Online (MHO)

 Established in 2008 with funding from Australia's Federal Department of Health, our National eTherapy Centre (NeTC) administers Mental Health Online – a comprehensive web-based e-therapy platform with evidence-based programs evaluated through research. 

MHO provides free self-help and therapist-assisted programs for a range of mental health concerns. If you are experiencing personal difficulties, our online assessment can help you identify them and provide recommendations to follow.

We currently offer free self-help programs for:

  • generalised anxiety disorder
  • depression
  • social anxiety disorder
  • obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • panic disorder
  • post-traumatic stress disorder

Through our therapist-assisted program, you can receive a weekly email from a trained therapist and add four video or chat-based counselling sessions. MHO also allows you to create a tailored program with our Made-4-Me option addressing up to three significant mental health concerns.

Learn more about Mental Health Online

Self-Management and Recovery Technology (SMART)

We have developed the Self-Management and Recovery Technology (SMART) platform with funding from the Victorian State Government as part of a research program aimed at integrating digital resources for people with persisting mental health problems. The platform is optimised for viewing on tablet computers and mobile phones for face-to-face healthcare interactions, with peer support or independently.

Pharmacological therapies

We have a limited but growing repertoire of research aimed at improving pharmacological treatments for severe mental health conditions, particularly schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorders. This research is being completed with our hospital collaborators.

An area for future development is brain-stimulation treatments, which are a further growth area for mental health disorders and generally reserved for situations in which medications and psychotherapy have not worked. These include transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation and an experimental treatment called deep brain stimulation (DBS).

With our hospital collaborators, we are already completing research using these techniques to improve the quality of lives of those with treatment-resistant mental health conditions. There is substantial scope to harness industry funding to grow this research area.

Our other research strengths within pharmacology interventions include basic research identifying novel medications and efficacy trials examining adjunctive medications.

Explore more research themes

Contact the Centre for Mental Health and Brain Sciences

We work with academia, industry and government to form meaningful and impactful partnerships. For more information, please email cmhbs@swinburne.edu.au.

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