Evidence Yields: The failure of web-based ‘treatment’ for mental health

Computerised treatment of mental health is one of the latest fads in psychology. It isn’t hard to see why it is promoted by practitioners and policy-makers. That it exists at all demonstrates a triumph of technique over transference in psychotherapy of cost-effectiveness over clinical care; of the primacy of giving a narcissistic boost over a discursive exchange; and of the privatisation and individualisation of suffering rather than its socialisation. Computerised treatment is promoted uncritically by leading mental health groups in Australia, such as the Black Dog Institute, and Beyond Blue.