Digital psychiatry in Asia

Digitising psychiatry? Sociotechnical expectations, performative nominalism and biomedical virtue in (digital) psychiatric praxis

Digital artefacts and infrastructures have been presented as ever more urgent and necessary for mental health research and practice. Telepsychiatry, mHealth, and now digital psychiatry have been promoted in this regard, among other endeavours. Smartphone apps have formed a particular focus of promissory statements regarding the improvement of epistemic and clinical work in psychiatry. This article contextualises and historicises some of these developments. In doing so, I show how purportedly novel fields have been constituted in part through practices of 'performative nominalism' (whereby articulations of a neologism in relation to established and recent developments participate in producing the referent of the new term). Central to this has been implicit and explicit extolment of what I term biomedical virtues in public-facing and professionally orientated discourse. I document how emphases on various virtues have shifted with the attention of psychiatry to different digital modalities, culminating with knowledge-production in mental health as one significant focus.

Disaster psychiatry in Asia: The potential of smartphones, mobile, and connected technologies

Disaster mental health is recognized as a crucial part of disaster preparedness and response. Despite the commonality of disasters in Asia, many countries face formidable barriers to a rapid and robust mental health care response. Mobile technologies can alleviate the immediate suffering and reduce onset of chronic conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. This article explores the role of mobile technologies to improve mental health before, during, and after disasters in Asia.