An app called Four Voices can provide online therapy and counseling for people struggling with depression. With this online help, they will be able to cope with debilitating mental health, be in their right mind and eventually overcome suicidal thoughts or feelings. Through this app, sound therapists, or volunteer occupational therapists, will be actively listening to those suffering from depression and stress caused by the economic crisis and Covid-19 and will attentively help them restore positive energy in their life.
Supalak Khemthong, instructor and Assistant Professor for the Division of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Physical Therapy at Mahidol University, Institute for Technology and Innovation Management (iNT) said that Four Voices App was developed as a healing tool for our soul, helping us to inspire ourselves through virtual occupational therapy given by the practitioners. The app was created to treat people with depression by letting them listen to “their own voices”. The app developers aims to make “sound therapist”, who may be a volunteer, to “listen” and “speak words of encouragement” to lift them up and move them away from acting on suicidal thoughts. The sound therapy is a therapeutic technique used to project appropriate sounds to treat mental conditions and its effects on brain waves can be measured. In the meantime, Four Voices app creators are building the sound library and seeking sources of funding as well as experts to help further develop the app to ensure its efficiency.
Supalak noted that the occupational therapy, which use therapeutic communication with people suffering from low mood, can help them regain positive thoughts and energy through a practice of the principle called C-L-E-A-R so that they can move on with their lives. This principle consists of 5 key words: C means being conscious (or get a hold of oneself), L equals listening deeply, E stands for empathy, A means being Active physically and R implies Relaxing, respectively. App users are encouraged to listen to their “Four Voices” to boost their positive thoughts and energy so that they can lead a healthy and happy life. These four voices are the voices of happiness, health, love and mindfulness.
Prior to Covid19 era, there has been a shortage of occupational therapists in many countries around the world. But today OT services are even in greater needs since we are facing so many challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic, great economic downturn and conflicts in society, all affecting our physical and mental health, attitudes and expectations, and the way we lead our lives. Due to social distancing policy, people have to work from home therefore online mental health counseling is considered a must.
In Thailand, there is a network of 30 occupational therapists more or less. Due to Covid-19 crisis, online therapy is generally preferred over face-to-face sessions between the practitioners and clients. Still the demands for online mental health counseling far exceeds the supply of occupational therapists. For this very reason, Four Voices App is being developed to be an alternative for those who want to better understand and take care of themselves as well as people around them.
