Supporting Personalized Health Care With Social Media Analytics: An Application to Hypothyroidism

Social media analytics can considerably contribute to understanding health conditions beyond clinical practice, by capturing patients’ discussions and feelings about their quality of life in relation to disease treatments. In this article, we propose a methodology to support a detailed analysis of the therapeutic experience in patients affected by a specific disease, as it emerges from health forums. As a use case to test the proposed methodology, we analyze the experience of patients affected by hypothyroidism and their reactions to standard therapies. Our approach is based on a data extraction and filtering pipeline, a novel topic detection model named Generative Text Compression with Agglomerative Clustering Summarization ( GTCACS ), and an in-depth data analytic process. We advance the state of the art on automated detection of adverse drug reactions ( ADRs ) since, rather than simply detecting and classifying positive or negative reactions to a therapy, we are capable of providing a fine characterization of patients along different dimensions, such as co-morbidities, symptoms, and emotional states.

Psychodynamic Therapist’s Subjective Experiences With Remote Psychotherapy During the COVID-19-Pandemic—A Qualitative Study With Therapists Practicing Guided Affective Imagery, Hypnosis and Autogenous Relaxation

The COVID-19-pandemic brought massive changes in the provision of psychotherapy. To contain the pandemic, many therapists switched from face-to-face sessions in personal contact to remote settings. This study focused on psychodynamic therapists practicing Guided Affective Imagery, Hypnosis and Autogenous Relaxation and their subjective experiences with psychotherapy via telephone and videoconferencing during the first COVID-19 related lockdown period in March 2020 in Austria. An online survey completed by 161 therapists produced both quantitative and qualitative data with the latter being subject to a qualitative content analysis. Our research suggests that telephone and videoconferencing are considered valuable treatment formats to deliver psychodynamic psychotherapy. However, therapists’ experiences with remote psychotherapy are multifaceted and ambiguous. In particular, the findings raise questions concerning the maintenance of the therapeutic alliance, the development of the analytic process, the sensitivity to unconscious communication, and the indication for certain types of patients that still need further investigation. Our research indicates that the long-standing reticence toward remote treatments offers among psychodynamic therapists is becoming more differentiated and partially dissolves as therapists gain experiences in their use. Attitudes are becoming more open. At the same time, the way is being prepared to take a closer look at the specific processes and dynamics of remote psychotherapy and to examine them critically in future studies.

The Use of Improvisation in a Student’s Music Therapy Practice with Older Adults in a Residential Setting

<p>As shown in the research literature, improvisation is a less common approach to music therapy practice than the use of familiar songs or group singing when working with elderly people in residential settings. This research explores the ways in which improvisation in music therapy could benefit elderly participants in a residential setting. A secondary analytic process was conducted involving a careful analysis of existing clinical data by the student music therapy researcher. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings consisted of three core themes which captured the ways in which improvisation was included in music therapy sessions: these were improvisational approaches described as anchoring, reflecting and dialogue. These core themes were strongly influenced by writings on improvisation method by the late Tony Wigram. Results showed improvisation has potential in its use among older adults in a residential facility. Conclusions could be used to help other elderly residential facilities that are willing to implement similar models of practice.</p>

The Use of Improvisation in a Student’s Music Therapy Practice with Older Adults in a Residential Setting

<p>As shown in the research literature, improvisation is a less common approach to music therapy practice than the use of familiar songs or group singing when working with elderly people in residential settings. This research explores the ways in which improvisation in music therapy could benefit elderly participants in a residential setting. A secondary analytic process was conducted involving a careful analysis of existing clinical data by the student music therapy researcher. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings consisted of three core themes which captured the ways in which improvisation was included in music therapy sessions: these were improvisational approaches described as anchoring, reflecting and dialogue. These core themes were strongly influenced by writings on improvisation method by the late Tony Wigram. Results showed improvisation has potential in its use among older adults in a residential facility. Conclusions could be used to help other elderly residential facilities that are willing to implement similar models of practice.</p>

Guardianship and self-sovereign identity: implications for persons living with dementia

Self-sovereign identity (SSI), an identity management system where individuals own and manage their digital identity, can improve access and management of one’s personal data. SSI is becoming feasible for the general public to use for their health and other personal data. Like any data system, when persons living with dementia no longer have capacity to provide informed consent, guardianship over their data is required. The purpose of this study was to examine the concept of guardianship within the context of SSI, specifically its application to persons living with dementia. This study followed a qualitative description approach. Seventeen semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted with persons living with dementia and care partners to elicit their perspectives on existing guardianship practices and guardianship within the context of SSI. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Conventional content analysis guided the analytic process. Participants had mixed impressions of existing guardianship practices. While some were positive, others thought existing practices failed to consider the complexity of caring for someone with dementia (e.g., presence of multiple guardians). Participants suggested that SSI has the potential to improve the security and safety of persons living with dementia who have had guardianship enacted (e.g., reduced risk of financial abuse.) Recommendations included ensuring that SSI guardianship processes are simple and flexible, building a user-friendly system that also considers the heterogeneity of persons living with dementia and their care partners. Overall, guardianship within the context of SSI was well received. Findings will be used to further inform the SSI guardianship processes.

Visualizing DEPICT: A Multistep Model for Participatory Analysis in Photovoice Research for Social Change

As a critical narrative intervention, photovoice invites community members to use photography to identify, document, and discuss issues in their communities. The method is often employed with projects that have a social change mandate. Photovoice may help participants express issues that are difficult to articulate, create tangible and meaningful research products for communities, and increase feelings of ownership. Despite being hailed as a promising participatory method, models for how to integrate diverse stakeholders feasibly, collaboratively, and rigorously into the analytic process are rare. The DEPICT model, originally developed to collaboratively analyze textual data, enhances rigor by including multiple stakeholders in the analysis process. We share lessons learned from Picturing Participation, a photovoice project exploring engagement in the HIV sector, to describe how we adapted DEPICT to collaboratively analyze participant-generated images and narratives across multiple sites. We highlight the following stages: dynamic reading, engaged codebook development, participatory coding, inclusive reviewing and summarizing of categories, and collaborative analysis and translation, and we discuss how participatory analysis is compatible with creative, interactive dissemination outputs such as exhibitions, presentations, and workshops. The benefits of Visualizing DEPICT include feelings of increased ownership by community researchers and participants, enhanced rigor, and sophisticated knowledge translation approaches that honor multiple forms of knowing and community leadership. The potential challenges include navigating team capacity and resources, transparency and confidentiality, power dynamics, data overload, and streamlining “messy” analytic processes without losing complexity or involvement. Throughout, we offer recommendations for designing participatory visual analysis processes that are connected to critical narrative intervention and social change aims.

The Clinical Relevance of Interdisciplinary Research on Affect Regulation in the Analytic Relationship

After more than a century of existence, theoretical development, research, and clinical practice within the psychoanalytic movement have consistently demonstrated that psychoanalysis is not a unitary and autonomous discipline. This has been evidenced by the various ways in which psychoanalytic thought and practice have been informed by and have established a dialogue—more or less fruitful—with related disciplines (neurosciences, developmental psychology, psychotherapy research, attachment theory and research, feminism, philosophy). This dialogue has contributed to a better understanding of the functioning of the human psyche, and therefore of the analytic process, informing clinical interventions. In turn, it has enriched research on psychoanalytic practice and process, underlining the fact that research in psychoanalysis is fundamentally about clinical practice. Since its origins, psychoanalysis has made explicit the work on the patient-analyst relationship as the terrain in which the analytic process unfolds. For its part, research in psychotherapy has demonstrated the relevance of the therapeutic relationship for the good development and outcome of any psychotherapeutic process. This supports the argument that research in clinical psychoanalysis should be research on the impact of the analyst interventions on the analyst-patient relationship. In this context, a central element of what happens in the analytic relationship refers to affect communication and therefore, affect regulation, which is manifested in the transferential and counter-transferential processes, as well as in the therapeutic bond. On the other hand, affective regulation is found at the crossroads of etiopathogenesis, complex personality models and psychopathology, allowing the understanding of human functioning and the staging of these configurations in the patient-analyst relationship. In this way, research on affective regulation in the analytic process is proposed as a path that exemplifies interdisciplinary research and scientific pluralism from which psychoanalysis enriches and progresses as a discipline. The case of a line of research on affective regulation in psychoanalytic psychotherapy is illustrated. The need to resort to other disciplines, as well as the translational value of our research and its clinical usefulness, is discussed.

“I Drew Myself Right There”: third grade girls restorying for visual justice

Purpose This paper aims to present three girls’ visual annotations and digital responses that restory a scene in the picturebook I’m New Here. The authors focus on how children use multimodal tools to reflect their critical knowledge of the world by illuminating how this group of girls responded to and incorporated broader social issues. Design/methodology/approach This study takes place in a third-grade classroom. Using qualitative methods that build on critical multimodal literacy, the authors documented and analyzed children’s visual and digital interpretations. Data were generated from classroom sessions that incorporated interactive readalouds, as well as students’ annotated visual images, sketches, video and digital responses. The collaborative analytic process involved multiple passes to interpret visual, textual and multimodal elements. Findings The analyses revealed how Aliyah, Tiana and Carissa used multimodal tools to engage in the process of restorying. Through their multimodal composition, they designed images that illuminated their solidarity with the young female character wearing the hijab; their desire to disrupt xenophobic bullying; and their hope for a respectful and inclusive climate in their own classroom. Originality/value In this paper, the authors examine how three girls in a third-grade classroom restory using critical multimodal literacy methods. These girls’ multimodal responses reflected how they disrupted dominant storylines of exclusionary practices. Their authentic acts of visual advocacy give us hope for the future.