I am pleased to introduce my individualized degree plan in the Development of Digital Therapeutics for Psychotherapy. My journey to INDS began during the darkest period of my life while attending University of Maryland, College Park. I was deeply depressed and struggling to find a sense of purpose in my study of computer science. While I was growing up, it seemed like there was a revolutionary new technology product announced every year. Yet, when I reached university to study technology in depth, my sense of wonder was gone. I left College Park to complete an associate degree in computer science and find a way to revitalize my interest in technology.
During my break from university, I worked with a wonderful therapist to get to the root of my struggles with depression. In one particularly helpful therapy session, I went through a process of visualizing my struggles in great detail. I described the weight of my depression as feeling like I was “always wearing five, enormous, metal blankets.” While this process brought me more clarity about how to express my internal feelings, I could not shed the overwhelming weight of these metaphorical blankets. Building on my past experience with computer science, I described to my therapist how beneficial it would be for me to interact with and remove a digital representation of the blankets in a virtual reality environment. Identifying a personally beneficial use of virtual reality reinvigorated my passion for technology and motivated me to pursue an individualized degree in digital therapeutics. I now aim to expand my focus to include many technologies in order to identify opportunities to support and improve the process of psychotherapy through digital therapeutics.
Digital therapeutics are interventions based on empirical evidence used to treat a wide variety of health concerns, ranging from diabetes to substance abuse disorders.1,2 Drawing upon my personal experiences, I have chosen to focus on digital therapeutics for the treatment of mental health disorders. These rapidly emerging interventions are individualized to each disorder they treat but have been shown to be effective across a variety of technology platforms. For example, a randomized controlled trial of users of Happify, a mobile phone digital therapeutic, has shown a significant improvement in positive emotions and a twenty-five percent increase in resilience to depression.3,4 Additionally, researchers from Cambridge University have found cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia, delivered through a self guided web application, to significantly improve insomnia symptoms and overall psychological well-being.5,6 Virtual reality-based digital therapeutics have also been found to effectively treat veterans with PTSD.7
My degree, the Development of Digital Therapeutics for Psychotherapy, will give me the opportunity to attain exposure to programming concepts and information systems that reflect the wide variety of technologies used by digital therapeutics companies. My degree includes essential knowledge of clinical psychology and psychotherapy techniques that digital therapeutics deliver to patients. I also incorporate knowledge of ethics and regulatory standards to understand the unique regulatory classification of digital therapeutics as software-based medical devices.8 Finally, given how quickly the field of digital therapeutics is evolving, I draw upon management, entrepreneurship, and innovation to understand the complex, startup environment common to digital therapeutics companies.
My degree makes me an ideal candidate to become a software developer within a digital therapeutics company and prepares me to develop as an entrepreneur in the field. My individualized degree provides me with an integrated knowledge of the complexities of digital therapeutics beyond that available in either psychology or information systems programs. With this individualized degree plan, I will be a compelling candidate for a field that has already identified the need to bridge the gap between clinical research and applied software development.9
I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the INDS program for their support in developing my degree proposal. I am especially grateful to my advisor, Steven McAlpine. I would like to thank my degree mentors, Dr. Ravi Kuber and Professor Lee Boot, for their ongoing support. I would also like to thank INDS alumnus, Josh Massey, for being an incredible mentor in my life and for initially introducing me to the INDS program. Finally, I want to thank the members of the ISC for their valuable feedback on my degree proposal.