CNN SATURDAY

Dr. Fred Goodwin, Host of The Infinite Mind, Discusses Internet Psychology

Aired July 7, 2001 - 13:11

DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: There are more than 20,000 Internet sites which dispense mental health information. That raises a lot of medical, legal and ethical questions. The public radio program "The Infinite Mind" addresses this issue in its program next week. It's called "Cyber-Psych, Mental Health on the Internet." The show's host is Dr. Fred Goodwin. He is the former director of the National Institute For Mental Health, and he joins us from Washington as we talk about mental health resources on the Internet and their possible pitfalls. Dr. Goodwin, nice to have you join us.

DR. FRED GOODWIN, HOST "THE INFINITE MIND": Nice to join you.

KELLEY: How does somebody know that somebody who is on the Internet, if you go to get some advice is legit, that they are not just typed in, hi, I'm Doctor Kelly and here's how I can help you?

GOODWIN: Well the first thing of course, Internet is used both for information gathering and for actual personal help-seeking. There are different issues in both cases. In terms of personal health- seeking you are up against problems that are similar to people when they are trying to find help in general. That is, how do you know somebody is legit. There are some Web sites that have been put together to try to screen things. There's one called Cybersense or dot-com sense that is done by the American Psychological Association. What they do, they don't tell you which Web sites are reliable. They don't do a kind of "Good Housekeeping" rating because there are many that change you couldn't possible keep up with that. What they do is they give you a way of, sort of a logic of how you try to tell. You contact the Web site, you ask questions, if people aren't forthcoming with the answers about who their sponsors are, what their sources are, do they have an advisory board, or does the advisory board have names that you recognize, do they have an affiliation with, let's say, a university or a medical center. All these things to serve to legitimize a site.

KELLEY: And that's a good point, too. When you talk about maybe for just going for information or if you are going to find a doctor, somebody to try and talk to. In the conversation you've had with folks, how popular is this? Are a lot of folks getting online to try and get some information?

GOODWIN: Yes. There's the hits on these shows, including our own, are very, very substantial and perhaps beyond what people expected.

KELLEY: And what are they looking for? What kinds of information?

GOODWIN: They are looking mainly for, where do I get help, what is out there, what should I expect, what treatments are available, what sort of professional is best to deliver a certain treatment. I think of the top ten search items out there in the health arena, four of them are mental health -- four out of ten -- which is an extraordinary level of interest.

KELLEY: And how far can a doctor or a therapist go to try and help somebody online? What are they able to do?

GOODWIN: Well that brings it onto a new area. That's not just information gathering that anybody can tap into and is sort of general. This gets into the issue of, can you establish a meaningful relationship on the Internet.

KELLEY: Right.

GOODWIN: Now we all know that therapist of different sorts, doctors of different sorts use the telephone. For example, when I treat patients and I see them (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I get to know them, then I can follow them up. If they happen to live in another city, I can follow them up, because regularly on the phone because I already know them. But even there, I like to see them face to face every once in a while because...

KELLEY: And how important is face to face? You and I can talk face to face, but we're still apart. You are in Washington and I'm in Atlanta, but still, we can establish a relationship. With someone, they can type anything. You can't tell if they are in an agitated state or really get a true reading, can you?

GOODWIN: A classic example, one if my guests brought this up on the radio program, was that, what if you had somebody who is manic. That's an area I know quite well because it's my specialty. One way a clinician tell somebody is manic is if their speech is very fast -- they are talking like this -- and if you actually print it out you can't tell that. In an e-mail you can't say that it is fast. And it may even make sense. The looseness of the connections may not be obvious. So a person might miss something. Now, the e-mail or the cybertherapist who is with us felt that he had a good way of kind of screening out the seriously ill and referring them to a local resource. But it still raises the question, because if you can't tell when somebody's tone of voice doesn't -- let's say for example, somebody's tone of voice doesn't fit what they are saying...

KELLEY: That's right, there are certain risks...

GOODWIN: There is a disconnect.

KELLEY: There are there are risks for folks who may be seriously ill, but it may be a place for some people to start who won't go to an office. We are just about out of time, so I want to ask you about the price. What about that? What did you find there?

GOODWIN: Basically they have, one of the Cybertherapists had a monthly fee you could use in whatever amount you wanted. You could use the whole every day, and another times they charges just the usual kind of hourly fee that a psychologist or a therapist might charge, perhaps something like 100 or $120 an hour. It is important to note, as you said, that a lot of people won't go to a therapist. And this can be an entry point for some people who are just too uncomfortable to sit down face to face or even to talk to somebody over the phone. For those sorts of people it can be an opening.

KELLEY: Dr. Fred Goodwin, the host of the Public Radio's "The Infinite Mind." We are delighted to have you join us, thanks very much.

(c) 2001 AOL/Time Warner, Inc.

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