[DAO: QmPvP9J] Behavioral Health Group in Decentraland: An Answer to the Problem?

by 0x30e923a7aaf8b8bffead5bed05ead42552b69d89 (cryptobehavior#9d89)

Should the following Tier 4: up to $60,000 USD, 6 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Community category be approved?

Abstract

Behavioral Health Group provides interactive, personable and immersive and embodied treatment solution where you’re in the therapeutic experience with the community - patient-led, patient-focused and patient-guided group therapy with CBT and DBT principles. You’re not just looking at it through your computer with your provider - rather, you are interacting with the community with the metaverse. Artificial-Intelligence will optimize the patient journey, allocate groups systematically and enable the digital experience to remain confidential, convenient and cost-effective.

  • Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): mindfulness, acceptance, and emotion regulation
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Grant size

60,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0x30e923A7AAF8b8BFFEAd5beD05ead42552b69D89

Description

There is a growing need to train and deploy health care professionals for mental health and behavioral wellness. Following the COVID-19 lockdowns, many therapist and psychiatrists took advantage of work from home (WFH) lifestyle and don’t appear to be returning to the office as quickly, if they returned at all.

Group therapy helps individuals develop communication skills and socialization skills, and allows clients to learn how to express their issues and accept criticism from others. Group therapy allows individuals to develop self-awareness by listening to others with similar issues. Group therapy in Decentraland’s community provides a low-cost alternative to costly, inaccessible health care and support with a community of individuals to support, validate and listen to other group member’s challenges

The group therapy sessions that will be facilitated include:

  • Self-help Group
  • Medication Group
  • Interpersonal Therapy Group
  • Encounter Group
  • Psychodrama Group

Benefits - For one to two hour sessions or ad hoc meet-ups, groups of 20-30 individuals (or more) in each group will benefit from the camaraderie, Sharing Different perspectives, Accountability, Building Confidence, Self-discovery, Transitions and Confidentiality

Connecting people with common treatment goals/plans to categorize individuals with similar behavioral traits, family dynamics, relationships and cultures with optimize the the patient journey and group/provider selection. The historical data on group can be used to predict future outcomes of new patients with commonalities - which of course, would be confidential, encrypted and masked.

Top Reasons People Do Not Go to Therapy:
“I’d rather talk to my friends.”
“It costs too much.”
“I don’t have time.”
“What good is talking going to do?”
“Therapists don’t say anything; they just sit there and judge you.”
“Therapists don’t really care about you; they do it for the money.”

Decentraland Behavioural Group Therapy rules includes:

  • Maintain Confidentiality
  • Commitment to Accountability
  • Limiting Socializing with Group Members
  • Communicate with Words, Not Actions
  • Participation is optional

Specification

his research project will be carried out in three phases:

  • Phase 1: Data Collection. Determine qualitative and quantitative analysis survey elements and dimensions.
  • Phase 2: Data Analysis. Perform quantitative and qualitative cost-benefit analysis
  • Phase 3: Recommendations. Produce suggestions on potential costs, benefits and solutions for the DAO community proposal based on the research findings.

Personnel

With over 10+ years in the healthcare, life science and insurance industry, I and confident our research proposal will identify optimal and effective recommendations, tools and resources for fostering community experience and promoting well-being. I am eager to understand the GAO perspective on supporting mental health in decentraland .

Thomas J Benton
LinkedIn Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasjessbenton

Roadmap and milestones

Phase 1 - Data Collection- 90 days

Phase 2- Data Analysis - 90 days

Phase 3 - Recommendations - 90 days

This research project will commence no later than September 30, 2022.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

1 Like

If you’re interested in the community research or want to know more about our DAO proposal contact us on below
Twitter: @groupbehavior @cryptobehaviour
Discord server: behavioral health group therapy

First of all I think this is a great idea and proposal. I’m confident this strategy would lower the barrier for entry to get behavioral help in multiple dimensions (literally), as stated in the proposal. Ultimately, I see the end result here addressing a greater majority of the market and really helping people all around the world in a direct way. A couple of things to note:

  • This is the most positive use-case I’ve come across in utilizing the metaverse to benefit mankind in a direct fashion. The problem described here is very real, and I think everyone can attest to their own experiences on that. This is a solution to a real problem, and the path for how the metaverse solves this is articulate, thorough and well-developed.

  • For patients: Quality therapists are hard to find, especially ones that are the right “match.” This process can takes weeks and months to complete under normal circumstances, and with the effects of the pandemic, has become virtually impossible - many people are discouraged and have given up entirely. It’s tough enough to struggle with mental health issues, let alone invest significant emotional energy and time into such an important piece of the puzzle, leaving you to feel all alone in your journey to finally get the help you need.

  • Perceived (or real) Therapist bias is a reality for patients. This method could greatly reduce or completely eliminate this as a barrier: it’s much harder to believe this is occurring if you are confident your identity is guarded from anyone in the system, and you’re being treated professionally the same as another patient or your partner (marriage and family counseling). Many patients refuse counseling or quit altogether if they believe their therapist formed an unhealthy bias towards a situation. Thus, the advice and potential solutions are limited, easily disregarded and written off if one of the patients truly feel their counsel has been compromised. This leaves a sour, distrustful taste of the experience and they are much less likely to try therapy in any setting, discounting it’s value completely. Pure conversations, isolated from identity can bring integrity back into the picture for couple and family counseling. I believe it’s also fair to say we learn if this is occurring by having multiple counselor options for a couple or family.

  • For therapists: Patient overload is a harsh reality, and in many cases patients are turned down due to lack of availability or not the right fit. Additionally, outpatient treatment has become commonplace for finding therapists. Altogether, this process is complicated and time-consuming for the patient, provider, and therapist.

  • In many cases, the first avenue of treatment is taking a quiz to assess your mental health and “who can be a good match.” Data integrity is a concern here: many people don’t take the quiz honestly, and the quiz does not always capture the complexity of what a person is actually experiencing. Utilizing this method could give much more accurate results of the actual nature of what people are going through, giving professionals better understanding and thus better treatment.

  • As noted by OP, online solutions for this have become common, but they are not necessarily making the situation better – it has been a necessity in the midst of a pandemic, but it’s made therapy a competition for patients to get quality care and find workarounds for their issues. Overall, healthcare should not be approach in such a desperate, disparate fashion.

  • In the last 2 years, uutside of healthcare, more and more of our experiences are taking place online. Based on current circumstances, it’s highly unlikely we will ever return to the “normal” of before-- it is simply cheaper and more efficient to have virtual interactions. However, it comes at a cost: lack of IRL human connection in daily activities has taken its toll on people. It is a limiting situation, and very challenging to replace IRL relationships with digital only ones.

  • Mental health stigma exists but is not actively discussed by most of the population (US). Most people are too embarrassed to admit feeling depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, drug abuse/self medication, etc… The effect is there is no real “safe space” where to admit these things freely without shame, folks depend on their own understanding of their condition (or lack thereof), coping on their own and in unsafe or self destructive ways.

  • This brings to mind a phenomenon I’ve observed many times in personal and professional world: How many times have I been wondering (or feeling) something in a room full of people, and someone else is thinking the same thing? Imposter syndrome is one example of this and has only recently come into the vernacular as a “normalized” issue for professionals. Imagine how many more there are that people are just too nervous to admit or talk about feeling, as to avoid being “abnormal” or “have issues.”

  • I believe it’s fair to say the complexity and combination of mental health issues has increased with time, and perhaps has been at ATH’s since the pandemic. Location based and virtual-only therapies are very limiting in regard to knowledge that others are indeed experiencing the same things you are… “you are not alone,” maybe are in very similar circumstances to you, and can directly relate. “Misery loves company” - it helps to know that someone is experiencing the same thing as you and with similar life circumstances. This proposal makes more people in similar situations more accessible to relate to, in a real and honest way since you don’t have to give away your personal identifying information.

In light of all of this, this proposal seeks to address an unacknowledged responsibility we have to scale our healthcare solutions directly correlated to the scaling of more technology in our lives. If we are to have more virtual interactions than IRL ones, how can we make those less empty, less extractful, more meaningful and value-added in a genuine way? This uniquely opens a door to a realm of possibilities.

Thanks for reading. I highly support this proposal, and think there are lots of ideas to build on here. Also, I think it’d be great if the community came up with a fun name for this idea.

OP: Pls update the discord server to be the invite server link. Thanks!

Edited to add an additional use-case that could benefit (

Thanks for that validation! They understand and articulate the benefits to humanity from this concept, perhaps better than I do, however the concepts have been evidenced and proven to work for hundreds of years, but the never with this modality:
:ballot_box_with_check: Confidentiality
:ballot_box_with_check: Cost-Effective
:ballot_box_with_check: Convenient
:ballot_box_with_check: Customized

:selfie: Socials
Twitter: @GroupBehavior @cryptobehavior
Discord Server: Behavioral Health Group Therapy

Hi, a really interesting concept! A few questions I have;

  • Who will be facilitating the group therapy sessions?
  • In situations of a ‘negative’ group therapy session, what follow up support will be available for the members of the group?
  • What data is being collected, and what analytical method is being used?

thanks

The facilitation of group therapy is is fluid - it is not static - the group members facilitate group through the promotion of a safe and comfortable therapeutic environment throughout the allocated community space. The ‘ground rules’ will be shared will the community members in the future and with the help of the grant, establish a period of ‘comment’.

Group therapy sessions can present unique, complex situations and require a thoughtful understanding of each negative event to ensure the appropriate support is available. Unfortunately, negative group therapy is a real risk and valid question for us to address in our research. Support is available through resources on social platforms and Discord being developed in our roadmap.

The first principle with group is maintaining confidentiality and data collection is only through GET Decentraland LAND data for Contributions, Districts, Estates, Mortgages and more. With group sessions, there will be no data collected – events held within the community will have event reporting available. The analytical methodologies will be shared will the community at the commencement of our research project. For more information, follow us on twitter at @cryptobehavior

Hello does anyone know why this is getting downvoted on snapshot? Would love to hear the feedback from folks!