W

ith stigma and a lack of awareness about mental health conditions continuing to pervade society, many sufferers remain reluctant to seek help.

In a bid to help people overcome their hesitance to seek professional help, a group of researchers has designed a counseling program that is accessible online. The program is aimed at providing people with mental illnesses such as depression with access to counseling so they can discuss their conditions in the privacy of their own homes.

“Sometimes people do not want to go to a therapist because they do not want to be seen by other people as they are afraid of being stigmatized,” one of the researchers, psychology lecturer at the Jakarta-based Atma Jaya Catholic University, Retha Arjadi said recently.

“With this program, the confidentiality of the therapy is guaranteed.”

Retha developed the program with her colleagues Maaike Nauta from Gronigen University and Claudi Bockting from Amsterdam University in the Netherlands. Called Guided Act and Feel Indonesia (GAF-ID), the online-based psychology therapy method consists of a series of eight weekly structured modules to help participants independently boost their mood.

Each module includes a monitoring journal for mood, behavior and activities, in which the participants are expected to input their feelings daily. The modules were also designed with typical Indonesian activities in mind for participants to practice, such as trips to the market and shopping at street vendors, Retha said.

A corresponding study, published in the international journal Lancet Psychiatry in July 2018, argued that online-based therapy was an effective way for people to handle depression. The researchers surveyed 313 respondents from Indonesia, with 159 participants given online therapy with guided activities and assistance by counsellors, while the rest were given minimum psychological education and no help from counsellors. After 10 weeks of the therapy, Retha said, the first group had seen their depression levels decrease 50 times more than the latter.

In the program, counsellors are reachable through a chat window on the website. The counsellor’s task is to make sure the participant has read the modules thoroughly and has filled out the journal and activity tasks according to the module.

“The counsellors are laymen, therefore they do not have the capacity and capability to assess the participants. They are not psychologists but they have passed recruitment tests and have been trained by clinical psychologists. During the program, one clinical psychologist supervises five counsellors,” Retha said.

The 2013 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) data report found that 6 percent of Indonesians aged 15 years old and above, or roughly 14 million people, suffered from mental and emotional problems such as depression and anxiety, while an estimated 400,000 Indonesians suffered from severe mental health issues.

Although it is not yet available for the public, Irwanto, a psychology professor at Atma Jaya, said the program had good potential. He also said that people often shied away from having face-to-face consultations and felt more comfortable opening up through conversations on messaging services like WhatsApp.

“The fear of stigmatization in face-to-face interactions often hampers therapy sessions. I hope this program can help tackle this issue in the future,” he added.