HealthPartners offers online cognitive behavior therapy program for mild depression, anxiety

Widely used in Europe, HealthPartners is first in region to offer web based CBT

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – July 6, 2015 – HealthPartners is the first health care organization in our region to offer a web–based program to treat mild and moderate stress, sadness, tension, depression or anxiety. Beating the Blues is an eight week program based on cognitive behavioral therapy. Developed at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, it has 12 years of research that shows it can significantly improve depression and anxiety.

“As many as eight in ten people with symptoms of clinical depression are not receiving any treatment and this tool can increase access to treatment that we know works. It can also prevent symptoms from getting worse for people who have minor stress or anxiety,” said Karen Lloyd, Ph.D. HealthPartners Senior Director of Behavioral Health and Resilience.

Beating the Blues combines multi–media interactive computer technology with empirically–validated cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT). Over the course of eight sessions, participants spend about 50 minutes per session learning to identify thought patterns, how they lead to feelings and behaviors that can cause stress, tension or negative feelings, and how to replace them with more positive thought patterns. The new thought patterns can result in more positive feelings and behaviors.

Online cognitive behavioral therapy programs are widely offered by health systems in countries including the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and Australia. The program was first used by a large health system in the U.S. in 2011. In 2013, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) added it to the National Registry of Evidence–based Programs and Practices in 2013. It is available at no–cost to HealthPartners 1.4 million health plan members and to patients at its 55 HealthPartners and Park Nicollet clinics.