Digital storytelling and video-game-based mental-health interventions

Strongly committed to enhancing access to care, treatment and client engagement with digital-health-intervention services, HBHL-funded researcher Manuela Ferrari—Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill—is developing a unique research program that uses digital narratives, including video-game-based interventions, for mental health treatment and anti-stigma campaigns.

Thanks to HBHL funding (as well as funding from provincial and federal programs, and industry partners), Ferrari was able to set up the Ludic Mind Studio, a digital-media and mental-health studio that explores the role technology plays in mental-healthcare settings. As Ferrari describes it, Ludic Mind is “a place where art and science come together.”

Located at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Ludic Mind focuses on three areas of research and development: digital interventions, e-assessment and monitoring and digital education. The studio aims to increase ease of access and quality of care for patients, as well as create a new model for mental-healthcare services enhanced by digital technologies.