The Future of Mental Health Treatment: Emerging Trends in Massachusetts Centers

Thanks to the new and emerging technologies today, we don’t need to refer to the cold-hearted or controversial therapies of just as recently as the 1950s. 

Lobotomy (a surgical procedure in the brain) and electroconvulsive (electrically shocking your brain) therapies – cruel, excruciating, and risky – were quite common in treating mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and more.

Thankfully, we have left them back into the era in which they (shouldn’t have actually) belonged. Today, we can use these technologies for a much more graceful mental health recovery:

Pharmacogenomics

This is one of those technologies that can get information by looking at a person’s genes. All the doctors need is a blood sample from you, and they don’t have to go surgically digging around in your brain to find the cause of an ailment (thank God!). 

By looking at the genes, doctors can figure out the best medications for you and how your body will respond to each medication. 

So, knowing ahead of time about which medications will be the most effective for you is best for everybody. This has only been made possible with Pharmacogenomics – i.e., using genetic information – to make data-backed decisions rather than making an educated guess.

There has been evidence of the efficacy of this approach; you can read more about the importance of evidence-based approaches by clicking here.

Then again, pharmacogenomics is generally recommended once the initial treatment seems to be ineffective, which makes sense though as this procedure at the beginning might just be overkill.

Psychedelics

You have heard of medicinal marijuana; this is one step above that.

Psychedelics are a group of substances that can change or enhance your sensory perceptions, thought processes, and energy levels; before you get any ideas, they are only medically prescribed in rare circumstances and are taken under medical supervision, so you don’t hurt yourself.

Psychedelics are useful as a complementary treatment to psychotherapy for mental illnesses such as PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. 

The way psychedelics work is they trigger physical and emotional responses from a negative memory. This serves to make you resistant to those responses, so you don’t suffer from a similar flood of emotions associated with that memory. 

It’s important to numb those responses as, in severe cases, might lead to suicidal ideation. There is evidence of psychedelics, such as psilocybin and Ketamine, effectiveness in mental health treatment, leading to its adoption in Massachusetts center. 

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Instead of the electric shock therapy on steroids, TMS is a much gentler approach to brain stimulation. A special magnetic coil is placed on the head, which stimulates electrical signals on the surface of the brain.

This allows to target very specific areas of the brain, non-invasively, to treat treatment-resistant depression, OCD, PTSD, and bipolar disorder.

You would also like to know that Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, TMS, can be completed in as little as 10 minutes! 

So, while treatments are becoming gentler, more effective, and less risky, they are also becoming faster – talk about the amazingness of all these new and emerging technologies. 

Big Data and Machine Learning

We know that “Big Data” and “Machine Learning” are some of the buzzwords being thrown around way too casually in the world. However, in the realm of Mental Health Treatment, they do have their unprecedented merit.

To give you a bit of context, Machine Learning is the technology that utilizes tremendous amounts of data (aka Big Data) to identify some of the hidden trends within the data. Then, extrapolate those trends to predict something about the future.

Now, we won’t be going all gypsy on you because these predictions are made using pools of data. The algorithms, with human assistance, can identify trends in the data that humans alone cannot. 

Of course, you’ll be needing some proof of this concept; thankfully, there are many! 

Imagine if you could identify cases of depression just by a person’s social media activity. Well, a lot of us are on social media, so Big Data is already readily available. Now with that data, and looking closely at participants’ Twitter accounts, researchers from the University of Tsukuba were able to identify depression cases.

The researchers used a Machine Learning model that assessed posting frequency along with the ratio of positive to negative words, and the frequency of those words. The results – 69% accuracy in predicting depression amongst young people on Twitter. 

That’s pretty promising when you consider the significance of early identification of a mental illness even if it results in a few false positive situations. 

3 More Trends To Look Out For

1. Self-Guided Therapy

There are several reasons why accessing therapy is difficult; shortage of mental health care professionals, time and commitment, and budgetary constraints are only a few of them. 

Therefore, self-guided therapy allows for receiving healthcare in remote areas, in your own time, and without the need for visiting a therapist – for at least until the initial screening is completed. 

POD Adventures, which is a video game actually, is great for children with or at risk of anxiety, depression, or behavioral challenges.

2. AI & Chatbots For Mental Health

This is in addition to self-guided therapy and utilizes AI and chatbots to assist you with free online therapy, listening support, as well as self-help guides. 

Now, these may be similar to ChatGPT or BARD but very different because instead of accessing data from anywhere in the world (with questionable authenticity), these chatbots specifically for mental health treatment can better guide in this realm.

3. Telehealth And Remote Therapy

We got familiar with the Zoom meetings and work-from-home environment back in the 2020 pandemic, and this is an emerging trend that has stuck with us since then. 

Teletherapy enables seeking care in remote areas; furthermore, a person might feel more comfortable opening up within the similar and comfortable environment of their own home. 

It takes no travel time or travel costs, and is convenient plus flexible, so you can get therapy at any time that you want. 

And if you’re looking to take things one step further, virtual reality tools are available that can transfer your room into a totally new environment. This can serve to stimulate triggers, slowly exposing the patients to face their fears in a controlled environment.