AN INTELLIGENT EMDR SYSTEM FOR HELPING STUDENTS WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
AN INTELLIGENT EMDR SYSTEM FOR HELPING STUDENTS WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

Summary/Abstract: A main problem for the development of students is to have some psychological problems. Such disorders can pose a serious threat to the learning and educational process of the students. In this article we present an intelligent Android system that can help students with such disorders or the psychotherapists that are treating them. The implemented technique is based on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - a recent developed technique in psychology. To the best of our knowledge, there is no such system reported in the existing literature. We are the first to report it. The system can have also an educational role, for example, for the students in psychology. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment designed to cure distress associated with traumatic events and the memories associated with them. Through EMDR the subject must keep his attention on two things, the traumatic event that remained in his memory and a rhythmic bilateral stimulation. This process induces some changes and can stimulate brain areas associated with information processing. The purpose of this technique is to access the traumatic memory network in order to facilitate a new association between the traumatic event and more adaptive information about the event. After a successful treatment distress is relieved, negative thoughts are reinterpreted and physiological arousal is reduced. During the therapy, the client is encouraged to relive, throughout memories, his emotionally disturbing material while focusing on external stimuli like: directed lateral eye movement, hand-tapping or audio sounds. The implications of this procedure are multiple and can be applied both in the field of mental health and education. Our implementation consists of an AI personal assistant who performs EMDR in the form of an Android application.

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