TILT – Therapeutic Innovations in Light of Technology
Research Revie
Technology in is a Mainstrea Longer Only F
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n this edition I highlight a few papers that have appeared over the last few months in the highly ranked Journal of Affective Disorders, linked only by their common interest in the internet as a subject of importance when considering mental health. That the subject now crops up so frequently in such journals, rather than primarily in specialist publications, is a further indication, if one were needed, that the subject of technology in counselling, psychotherapy, coaching and mental health care is now increasingly mainstream. That they can be culled from a few issues of just one source shows how frequently the issues now arise.
As co-editor of a symposium that will focus on online practice in a special edition of the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (BJGC - to appear in 2015, issue 43(1), edited by Hooley & Goss), I was impressed by the number (and quality) of abstracts that were
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submitted for consideration - so many, in fact, that just as many good quality papers as were accepted were recommended for publication in standard, non-specialist issues of the journal simply due to a lack of space in a single edition. This will create something of a ‘rolling symposium’ in BJGC on technology in mental health and guidance settings as an entirely normal part of everyday practice for those who do not consider themselves specialists in its use at all. Furthermore, papers on technological innovations have consistently ranked highly among BJGC’s most cited and most read items. This experience stands in contrast to an equivalent symposium in the same journal published just a few years previously (Goss & Anthony, 2009). The subject of technology in mental health care is clearly continuing to shed its image as something that is for specialists. The editors of TILT and the current author have been arguing along these lines