Psychotherapy in digital age: design ethnography for service design

ethnography | Social design

Formerly PSYDIA Project, University of Nimes, France

juin 2018

I conducted a very rare and unusual ethnography for a Research through design project in 2017 for a research program on mental health led by S. Vial, now at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada (formerly in University of Nimes, France). I shadowed a psychotherapist during her daily professional life, visits, psychotherapy sessions with seven patients, office work, etc. I transformed the collected data into an ethnographic narrative and then a design brief (3 days of observations, approximately 33 pages of description, and drawings!). We are now writing an article. The data was rich and multidimensional, and combining design perspective with the ethnographic sensitivity and open mind gives an impressive data quality when observing professional practices.

I am looking forward to publishing our work and share with you, but since the data did its way, you can discover S. Vial’s work on the design and mental health through UQAM Research Chair in Design for e-Mental Health.