Computers! Essay, Research Paper

Why We Started

Internet Mental Health is a free encyclopedia of mental health information.

It was designed by a Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. Phillip Long, and programmed by his colleague, Brian Chow.

The idea of creating Internet Mental Health resulted from a Canada-Japan Mental Health Exchange in 1994 arranged by Mr. Mikio

Kuraki. During that exchange, Robert Winram and Dr. Phillip Long visited Japanese psychiatric hospitals and lived for one week with

psychiatric patients as guests in their homes.

The Canadian delegation was amazed to find that, in Japan, the average length of stay in psychiatric hospital for a patient with

schizophrenia was four years. In Canada, the same patients would be hospitalized for only four weeks, then followed as outpatients.

The most outstanding need in Japan, our hosts told us, was for more information concerning our mental health sytem in Canada.

Thus the concept of Internet Mental Health was born. By using Internet, our hope was that we could freely share whatever

information we have on mental health with the world.

You could help us improve Internet Mental Health. Please write to us with your comments and suggestions.