New online therapy programme helps you beat the ‘office’ blues

WELLINGTON - For all those stressed with their jobs, an online therapy programme that could revolutionise how companies deal with on-the-job stress is being introduced.

Depressed workers are being offered online counselling through a programme, called Beating the Blues.

It is being trialled in New Zealand by behavioural healthcare company Instep.

The program is available 24 hours to staff of those organisations, at no cost, for the three-month trial and uses cognitive behavioural therapy, widely accepted as one of the most effective and long-lasting treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, clinical depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Instep psychologist Vanessa Caldwell said the launch of the program would help those left stressed by the recession.

“The perception that the country is struggling, that companies are struggling, that workplaces are under review … creates an enormous amount of stress because people then don’t know how to plan for the future or know how secure things are,” Stuff.co.nz quoted Caldwell as saying.

“What we’re aiming for is to get people into support and appropriate level of care before it becomes a real health issue and they have to take time off work or stress leave,” Caldwell added.

Caldwell said online therapy was an easier alternative for people who could not face a therapist and there was also no need to wait for an appointment. (ANI)