WHO | Release of a new WHO manual on psychological self-help interventions

Dear all,

WHO has released a new manual - Psychological self-help interventions: delivering self-help for individuals, featuring Step-by-Step and Doing What Matters in Times of Stress. It contains key information on how to deliver these interventions and also provides the content for running Step-by-Step. 

As highlighted in our World Mental Health Report, self-help tools have enormous potential to expand evidence-based psychological support, as they can be delivered remotely, unguided or with brief support from a trained helper (e.g. 15-minutes per week) across large distances. 

The two WHO psychological interventions featured in this manual have been tested in multiple RCTs and are already used widely. Step-by-Step is available nationwide across Lebanon and Thailand, and has also been adapted for WhatsApp in India.  Doing What Matters in Times of Stress is available in over 40 languages and used in many countries, in different digital and non-digital formats, including in Afghanistan and Ukraine.  

We thank the numerous collaborators who have worked with us in this expanding area.

Please reach out to Dr Ken Carswell carswellk@who.int with any questions, or opportunities to disseminate or implement these innovative approaches further.

For more information: 

• Read the news story here
• Access the manual and Step-by-Step content on our new Psychological self-help interventions page
• LinkedIn post here 
   

Best wishes,

Mark van Ommeren, PhD
Head, Mental Health and Substance Use Unit
Department of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health
World Health Organization (WHO)
Ave. Appia, Geneva 1211 Switzerland.