Engelsk A

On their arrival the station was lively with straw-hatted young men, welcoming young girls who
bore a remarkable family likeness to their welcomers, and who were dressed up in the brightest
and lightest of raiment.
    “The place seems gay,” said Sue. “Why – it is Remembrance Day!¹ – Jude – how sly of you –
you came today on purpose!”
    “Yes”, said Jude quietly, as he took charge of the small child, and told Arabella’s boy to keep
close to them, Sue attending to their own eldest. “I thought we might as well come today as on
any other.”
    “But I am afraid it will depress you!” she said, looking anxiously at him up and down.
    “Oh, I mustn’t let it interfere with our business; and we have a good deal to do before we shall
be settled here. The first thing is lodgings.” [...]
    But his soul seemed full of the anniversary, and together they went down Chief Street, their
smallest child in Jude’s arms, Sue leading her little girl, and Arabella’s boy walking thoughtfully
and silently beside them. Crowds of pretty sisters in airy costumes, and meekly ignorant parents
who had known no college in their youth, were under convoy in the same direction [...]

Whether with a private therapist on Zoom, through an app that daily reminds us to log our emotions,
or in a back-and-forth with a chatbot, teletherapy is often proffered as a catch-all salve for our
current mental healthcare crises. Remote treatment is touted as an efficient way to reach more
patients in a time of extreme difficulty, an intimate intervention that can scale.
    During the on-and-off mandated social distancing that has marked the past 18 months of the
pandemic, teletherapy has shed its status as a minor form of care to become, at times, the only
thing on offer. [...]
    Having a therapist see a patient on Zoom or condensing treatment to self-tracking and AI¹
interfaces may be recent innovations, but the broad notion that technology and distanced processes
will solve our woes is nothing new. We have been turning to forms of technology to deliver mental
health services for more than 100 years. [...]
    While versions of teletherapy have emerged over and over again during the past century on
medium after medium, it is also accurate to say that it has finally arrived. The corporate health
industry has taken notice. Online therapy companies such as Talkspace are being traded publicly on
Nasdaq². Amazon has continued to push its Halo wearable tech, which uses a built-in microphone
to perform machine listening, with nudges to users to be more “positive”. And white-collar workers in
the US are treated to a barrage of company-sponsored reminders to use the mindfulness and
wellness apps bundled in their benefits.