Computer getting you down..?

I'm having one of those days when my legs don't seem to be communicating with my brain, and my eyes can't stay open long enough to focus on anything further than the end of the bed. So it's taken me most of the day to haul myself up to the computer and get it switched on. Problem is, the repetitiveness of mouse clicks and the glare of the screen are conspiring against me to try and send me back to sleep again. So work is a slow concept today...

Or is there something wrong with my computer? Because I heard on the news today that our computers could be therapeutic aids. There's been a new development in the treatment of depression. A computer simulation programme, incorporating case-studies of sufferers to spur you on, uses cognitive behaviour therapy to help you to help yourself to lift out of your illness.

Now on the one hand I can see that it has its benefits. Take me, I couldn't even talk to Bill about how I was feeling for the best part of a year. By the time I finally reached meltdown it came as a complete shock to him because he didn't know what I had been hiding. And as for talking to a doctor about it, well, that was the furthest thing on my mind at the time. But a computer - now that might've been good. I could have logged on each day (if I could have dragged myself to the desk) and talked through my problems with something that was never going to be capable of answering back, judging me or laughing in my face. And I would never have to try and explain why I was feeling the way I was, when even I didn't know - the computer wouldn't care. And if it did get above its station, well the ultimate power lay with me - I could just switch the damn thing off!

But I'm not sure... I understand this new therapy is working really well with some people. But I worry about a technocentric world where we are even turning to machines to help us deal with our psychological problems. To me there just seems to be something a bit in-human about creating an artificial 'talking environment' between a human and a computer (I've just remembered, I read a novel once about an academic experimenting with this sort of thing and it really screwed him up!). Anyway, where was I? As someone who has suffered from depression alone, then plucked up the courage to talk to people about it, and then been lucky enough to benefit from counseling, I just think that there are times when we need that human touch to give the edge to our solutions. A computer may be programmed to come up with the right questions, and show nice video clips of actor-sufferers who talk about their experiences, but will a computer ring on your door and force you to get out of bed once a week? Will a computer help you to remember the social niceties of making a cup of tea for a visitor, and will that computer have a knowledge of your local environment that will help you and it shape particular coping strategies that can be applied for your circumstances? I'm not convinced.

I'll probably eat my words in twenty years time when we all have our own PCT (personal computer therapist), just like we now all have mobile 'phones and laughed at those first huge prototypes in the 'eighties - but the human touch of knowing somebody was coming to talk to me once a week, would be able to respond to visual clues from me and my home, and care enough to make sure we were making progress - that was what mattered for me, and I could never get that from a computer programme.

Anyway, I must stop, I obviously don't know much about it and what I do know came from one news report, half of which I've forgotten. Could be the whole thing is a lot more sophisticated than I'm giving it credit for, and the computer comes complete with cuddly arms and a smiley face to lift your spirits daily. My memory is at an all time low at the moment - could be the tiredness, but then again, according to a box of Allways Ultra sitting on my bathroom shelf, it could be because I'm at the wrong time of my cycle. Apparently women's memories are at their best in the middle of their cycle when their oestrogen levels are at their highest. All very well, but as we only read that at the beginning of our cycle, when our memory is poor, by the time we get to the stage which should be optimum for passing exams and memorising important phone numbers, we've forgotten when it was we should be at our peak...

So long! I'll try to remember to come back soon, but I may have to wait till mid cycle, could be a week or so...