Imagine if Your Therapist Could Access Your Smartphone

Very interesting thought, will the contents of our phones provide maps to our psyche in the future?     Useful, but beware of possible uses, privacy?

Imagine if Your Therapist Could Access Data From Your Smartphone

The Wall Street Journal, by Laura Landro

Scientists are designing and testing applications that collect smartphone data to enhance psychiatric therapy and help therapists make more timely interventions. Researchers at the Harvard University-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have developed an app called mindLAMP designed to provide therapists with an overview of patient behavior and mental status. It uses smartphone sensors to collect behavioral data like screen time and sleep, and information from patients through surveys and cognitive tests; doctors review the data to evaluate patients' mental states and to tailor therapy regimens with them. Boston University researchers created the Motivation and Skills Support app to deliver targeted social-goal assistance to patients based on location, movement, and audio data continuously collected by their phones. University of Washington scientists are exploring the use of online search-history data to better understand suicide risk and design methods to detect and prevent it.