Participatory Design of a System for Computer-supported Distance Art Therapy

Abstract

Rapid expansion of the Internet has resulted in the emergence of electronic counselling and psychotherapy services. These services show great potential to make therapy accessible to a wider range of people, for example people whose mobility is limited by disability or illness. Research is needed to assess the possibilities and pitfalls of this new form of mental health care. In this paper we describe a participatory design process during which we developed a system to support distance art therapy and simultaneously identified key issues to consider for research and practice in this rapidly evolving field. We present the design rationale, the context, and a description of our interaction with the participatory design team. The process significantly changed perceptions of the usefulness of distance art therapy on the part of the research team, and yielded both a workable computer system and a list of advantages and potential problems of online mental health services.