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Proactive Telehealth Using Appreciative Curiosity: Innovations from COVID-19

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Innovations in Global Mental Health

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Abstract

In this chapter, we outline the principles and practice of appreciative curiosity to address the mental health consequences of COVID-19. The chapter has been written in April 2020. Given the rapidly evolving nature of the global crisis, the reader is advised to read the content in the context of the timeline. The immediate threat to life due to the pandemic means that mental health is not in sharp focus, but the need has never been greater. Anxiety is rife, and it applies to staff, patients, and the general population. To contain the pandemic, services have needed to eliminate all nonessential face-to-face contact and adapt their practice rapidly to telehealth. We describe a model called appreciative curiosity which is ideal for proactive telehealth contact to support people to stay safe and keep well through the pandemic. It has five components: acknowledgment of the anxiety as one that is shared across the board; assurance of how we will get through this together; awareness of what helps, hinders, and harms; actions that are values guided; and appreciation of one’s assets and aspirations. The practice-based model supports people to discriminate anticipatory anxiety from anxiety that can be addressed through actions in the here and now. The foundation of the model is the shared experience of the pandemic and an attempt to connect with a fellow human being without a power differential and make meaning together of tough times. We have then translated the five components of appreciative curiosity in a simpler semi-structured, guided conversation called LIFE. Mental health professionals can use it as a brief telehealth intervention but is aimed for primary health care and community settings. There are four aspects to the LIFE interaction: Listen with care, Identify emotional pain, Find help, and Establish hope. There is an emerging new normal and a lot of uncertainty yet to come. LIFE focuses on those simple pragmatic solutions to enhance wellness while adapting to an alternative future with its novel challenges. Finally we put these changes to the 2030 future-proof challenge. There is an openness to change due to the crisis and it has forced services to innovate rapidly. We believe this may help bring time forward and allow us to anticipate and design future care systems better and deliver tomorrow’s care today. We identify key shifts in mindset from physical to virtual, from reactive to proactive, from deficits to assets, and from top to tap, shifts that will be critical in meeting the 2030 future-proof challenge for mental health services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Addictions and Mental Health Services, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Metro South Hospital and Health Service, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Manaan Kar Ray

  2. South side Clinical Unit, Princess Alexandra Hospital, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Manaan Kar Ray

  3. Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Manaan Kar Ray

  4. Research and Development, Mental Health Foundation, London, UK

    Chiara Lombardo

  5. Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Chiara Lombardo

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  1. Manaan Kar Ray
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Correspondence to Manaan Kar Ray .

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  1. Center for Health, Culture, and Society, Nashville, TN, USA

    Samuel O. Okpaku

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Kar Ray, M., Lombardo, C. (2021). Proactive Telehealth Using Appreciative Curiosity: Innovations from COVID-19. In: Okpaku, S.O. (eds) Innovations in Global Mental Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57296-9_133

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