The importance of mental health has been widely recognized. Nevertheless, in Japan, the treatment gap remains unresolved. On the user side, there are barriers such as stigma and time/financial costs associated with help-seeking. On the provider side, challenges include the difficulty of matching clients with appropriate psychological support. Telepsychology has the potential to solve these issues. My research focuses on online psychological support and examines its effectiveness and potential applications.

Previous studies have focused on examining the effectiveness of various forms of online psychological support. However, whether telepsychology improves people’s help-seeking have been underexamined. My research investigates both the effectiveness of telepsychology and explores appropriate service provision to enhance people’s help-seeking.

• My research goes beyond showing the “effectiveness” of online psychological support and focuses on improving accessibility, aiming for outcomes that are practical and useful in society.
• It examines both user factors (such as stigma and costs) and provider factors (such as matching difficulties).
• Based on empirical evidence, it explores better ways of delivering services so that psychological support becomes easier to access.

The goal of this research is to improve access to psychological support services, contributing to early intervention and the maintenance of mental health and well-being. There is potential for collaboration with companies providing mental health-related services, organizations promoting employee health management and corporate wellness, as well as ICT-based medical and welfare service developers.

• telepsychology
• online counseling
• online therapy
• e-mental health
• remote psychological support
• help-seeking
• mental health
• consumer preference