Digital Technologies Flatten Lived Experience of Psychosis and Collude with Neoliberal Medicalization
Researchers critically examined the use of digital self-monitoring tools in first-episode psychosis clinics.
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Researchers Suze Berkhout and Juveria Zaheer analyzed the emerging trend of mental health apps and digital technologies used in a first episode psychosis clinic and challenge claims that digital technologies empower service-user voices. Their new paper is part of a larger study that critically examines the early intervention model of treatment. In this paper, they draw attention to the risks and unexamined assumptions surrounding the adoption of digital technologies in the mental health field:
“In psychosis, digital technologies risk sidelining certain ways of knowing and being, flattening and erasing certain experiences that are not easily incorporated into the structure provided by the technologies themselves,” Berkhout and Zaheer write.