Sesanate – a pilot project to explore a therapeutic cyber community

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot experiment to establish a web site to enable people undergoing therapy, or having similar problems, to communicate with one another – in effect, the cyber equivalent of a therapeutic community. Design/methodology/approach – Software for a dating web site was adapted as a low cost means of driving the site. It provided for chatrooms, group discussions on topics of mutual interest, notice boards on which questions, responses, articles and poems could be posted and blogs. A volunteer Steering Group worked on the project launch and thereafter manned the site and monitored the project. User feedback indicated that a cyber community could meet the psychological needs of the participants and provide useful support, particularly between visits to a therapist. A surprising outcome was the feeling of community developed by written exchanges, i.e. blogs and forum notice boards. Direct on-line contact generated anxiety in some people, but most found it beneficial. Findings – The paper confirms that such a site would be a useful supplement to other therapeutic services available, and would not be expensive to establish or run, but needed the backing of the NHS or a large medical charity to ensure that the number of users would be at a viable level in the long term. Originality/value – As far as the author is aware the paper reports the first ever study of the potential use of a cyber therapeutic community.