TEXT B Mental health professional
may be surprised to discover how much is happening online today in the
healthcare field. Working closely with dozens of online discussions with hundred
of others, I believe I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on and what is in
store for us professionals and leading online mental health issues of
interest. For the most part, behavioral healthcare professionals
continue to use the online world like most people do—to exchange information and
communicate with one another. This hasn’t changed all that much since I got on
the Internet in 1991 and isn’t likely to change much in upcoming years. What
will change are the exact mechanisms and technologies used to access online
services. Right now, online communities and discussion forums
remain by far the most popular areas for professional to enjoy. Behavior OnLine,
you know so well, is one of the leaders in this area and continues to be a
shining example of how to build a solid, high-quality professional community
online. In the upcoming months, Behavior OnLine will be improving its discussion
forum interface, adding regular real-time hat events, and implementing another
quality-enhancing features which will greatly add to your experience as a
member. Mailing lists remain popular with professionals online
as well, usually because of their increased privacy and stability. For instance,
one of the mailing lists I host, Psychology of the Internet: Research &
Theory, continues to enjoy ongoing discussions about research and theory into
online behavior. Some of more recent topics include the Larry Froistad case and
validity of Internet addition disorder, Hundreds of other professional mailing
lists also exist, on topics. If you haven’t ever tried subscribing to one of
these e-mail based forums, I highly recommend trying one out. Not only are they
good for the collegial chat, but they can also help you keep up to speed with
new treatments, theories news, and current issues in the field.
Another way to stay current is to take continuing education courses. While
we’re used to taking such courses in person, the idea of taking them online is
still new and intriguing education courses. While a variety of such continuing
education offering are now available, most are nothing more than asking you to
great deal of text online, follow a few links, and then answer some general
questions about what you’ve just read. Not exactly cutting-edge stuff there. In
fact, home courses and audiotapes have been available for years and allow you to
do just. To make the most of online technologies, we took a
different task. Behavior OnLine has teamed up with Mental Health Net, the site I
oversee, to offer audioPsych. This innovative educational offering allows you to
listen to a speaker present on various behavioral healthcare topics, raging from
cognitive therapy for the treatment of personality disorders to
psychopharmacology in depression and sleep disorders. At the same time as you’re
listening to the audio transmitted to your computer through the Internet, slides
automatically appear on your computer screen just as if you were in the room
with presenter, taking the course live! A number of distinguished faculty are
included in audioPsych’s course offerings, including C. Keith Conners,
Ph.D., Peter Salovey, Ph.D., Theodore Million, Ph.D., D. Sc., Michael D. Yapko,
Ph.D., James Pretzer, Ph.D., and Barbara Fleming, Ph.D., among others.
This kind of technology is not for the faint-of-heart, though. It is
recommended you have a 28.8 K or better Internet connection, do not connect to
the Internet through a commercial service such as America OnLine or Compuserve
(because their Internet connections are too crowed for this kind of
application), and have at least a Pentium PC or Power PC Mac. You can try it out
for free, though, as every course has an associated 15— 20 minutes’
demonstration. So if you’re looking for a way to fulfill your continuing
education requirements, audioPsych is worth a try. Which of the following statements is true, according to the passage
A．The author is offering his view on the online services. B．The author is trying to publicize the website he oversees. C．The author is writing his summary for professionals only. D．The author is discussing the issue of continuing education.