Depressed? Phobic? Broken-hearted? If so, the world's first download-to-mobile therapy service promises to soothe your troubled mind. My Mobile Guru offers life-coaching, counselling and therapy for a whole host of ills, from anger management to infidelity and even the shock of cancer diagnosis. Simply visit mymobileguru.co.uk and download the appropriate message to your PC or mobile phone.
The idea of online therapy is not a new one - the web is awash with sites proffering psychological help. Many of them, such as the NHS-approved Fear Fighter (fearfighter.com), offer online programmes based on cognitive behavioural therapy techniques such as questionnaires and goal-setting, backed by support via email. What makes My Mobile Guru stand out from the cyber-therapy crowd is that you get your sessions on the move - counselling in the chip shop or psychotherapy in the pub. The founder, complementary therapist Gary Siva, claims that the site is "immediate, discreet and convenient" and can help resolve any of life's problems.
But does it work? I give "I Get So Angry" a whirl. Siva's six-minute, 43-second script seems to be littered with platitudes ("Every person, at some time, has experienced anger") and New Age-isms ("We are all beings that can feel"). The anger-management techniques on offer include stamping my feet or singing along to a favourite song.
I ask Siva how this kind of one-size-fits-all advice could hope to address the infinitely varied nature of psychological distress. "Although we experience different symptoms, the techniques used to deal with them are often generic," he says. "For varying symptoms the solution is often the same."
Phillip Hodson, fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, is sceptical about the idea of healing by download. "All you could do on a mobile download is what you can do with a leaflet, or old-fashioned agony aunting. That could never be called therapy."
Indeed, research into what makes therapy work has found the relationship between therapist and client to be the primary agent of healing. "You can't have a relationship with a mobile phone download," insists Hodson.
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