Internet- and computer-based treatments of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Abstract

Internet-supported psychological treatment has been around for 20 years, with the first studies and programs developed in the mid 1990s. Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy (ICBT) for generalized anxiety disorder resembles face-to-face therapy in terms of contents but the information is provided mostly via text supplemented with videos, audio-files, and pictures. In ICBT an important discussion point is the role of the therapist alliances, which is seen as crucial for therapy success in psychotherapy even if the correlation between alliance and outcome is only moderate. A special form of computerized intervention is cognitive bias modification (CBM) programs. They are based on the idea that the cognitive processing of mental health patients is usually changed in favor of processing disorder-specific information. CBM targets such cognitive biases directly, usually with the help of computerized training programs