Participants Manual
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The software works by presenting a message which is too faint to be seen clearly. The words used are CALM, DELIGHT, and CALM DELIGHT. These words, and only these words, are presented to the user of the software every two seconds. This is the only activity of this software. In an initial pilot test this has been found to be highly effective in eliminating anxiety and depression when used consistently for periods of time of a week or more.
Subliminal messages, messages in some way masked so that they cannot be seen and noticed consciously, have been shown to be effective in altering the mental state of the recipient. This was established in seminal research by Drs Draine and Greenwald, in which they tested the reactions of participants to words influenced by the momentary impact of a subliminal key word. The response was found to be measurable and repeatable, but of very short duration. This study is to confirm that a longer term effect can be produced by prolonged exposure to a suitable message. The words used, calm and delight, are the concomitants of optimal serotonin levels in the neurochemical system, and are also descriptions of affect incompatible with anxiety and depression.
The test you take at beginning and end of the study, and also at the midpoint, is a simple measure of depression anxiety and stress as separate psychological 'dimensions'. It is a self score test, so you will have access to the scores, and, should you wish, you may take them again for your own use any time you like.
As an entirely personal aside, and solely for your own use, you may chose to keep a diary of moods, or events in your life, or both, which could be correlated with any scores you get. This however is entirely up to you, and no requirements for information will be made of you other than the completion of the measures and the running time total for the software in use. At the same time, you are very welcome to contribute any anecdotes which you consider relevant!
At the end of the study you will be entitled to a free copy of the commercial version of the software with full functionality.
Privacy
We wish to assure you of your absolute privacy in regard to the results of the measure used. All data will be kept secure and encrypted on the server. Your ID for the study will be your email address. Should you provide your name and other details these will be kept independent of and separate from the results of the tests, and will be destroyed at the end of the study, so that there is no long term record in existence which could be used to correlate your scores on the measure with yourself. This information will never, under any circumstances whatsoever, be disclosed to any other person. This is not to say that there is anything intrinsically embarrassing or disadvantageous about scores on a measure of anxiety and depression! We hope you find this information to be interesting and useful as I myself have. It is, however, an entirely private matter, and will always be treated as such at all times.
Other Data
The only other data needed for the research is the running time of the software. This will be recorded by the program, and displayed in the program interface.
We would also like to have your name, gender and ethnic origin, but these are not essential. You can participate anonymously if you really want to! We will, however, need up to date contact details for the duration of the research program.
Stopping the program temporarily
The program is quite demanding of the graphical system of the computer, and if it is running at the same time as another program with similar demanding graphical requirements it can produce unwelcome side effects such as flickering or slow performance. Typical examples of programs of this nature are DVD playing software and interactive games. Should the software be a nuisance because it is interfering with some other program you are running, you can turn the software off by clicking on the stop button at the bottom of the program window; it will automatically start again with windows when you start your computer next time. Since there are those of us that never turn their computers off, the software will also restart automatically after 8 hours if the computer is left on. This is simply to ensure that the software is not forgotten and sits unused for the period of the study!
Removing the program
If the software produces a negative effect on you it is of course ok to stop the program and uninstall the software. The software is uninstalled using the Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs window, like any other program. If you do uninstall the program please inform the research coordinator.
You are entirely welcome to begin the study again should you wish to do so.
Please be aware that there is no negative impact to the study if you withdraw, and that you are of course in every way entirely free to do so.
Getting Help
Logically, the presentation of the messages used in the research to the mind should result in only positive reactions. However, we are nothing if not complex beings, so the possibility of a negative reaction must be considered. Should you find yourself having an unusual or unprecedented experience of anxiety or depression while using the software in the absence of any obvious cause in events in your life you should immediately stop the software and uninstall it. It can be started again easily enough!
If this should occur you are welcome to contact me - the coordinator - straight away. I am a trained and experienced psychotherapist, and while I cannot undertake to engage in therapy with you, I will under these circumstances provide support and do my best to ensure that you find any resources or help that you need. If you encounter a severe and / or urgent problem you should in any case contact your doctor unless you are already receiving adequate support.
The 'Control' Group
It is my experience that this software is highly effective, but no stringent objective tests have been carried out to date. Sadly, it is a requirement for any significant research that some participants be given 'dummy' software, which looks as if it is working, but isn't! Given the very emotive nature of the psychological features under research I will begin by saying how sorry I am that this is necessary. In any case, if you are one of those who do get dummy software, you will not be going through the whole research period with it. After one month, if you have been allocated dummy software you will be advised of this, and provided with the fully operational software for the second month of the research.
Running time
The software automatically records the total time it has been in use for each month. This is a useful statistic because it will enable us to see if there is any direct relationship between the number of hours the software is in use and the effect it has. Please be aware that this 'score' is entirely without a 'good' or 'bad' value, it does not matter whether it is a lot of hours or a few. This is the only information from your computer that will be requested. This information will also considered private and will be kept associated only with your ID number.
Update
In the light of the first month of the study it may be decided to alter some aspect of the software or adapt it in some way. Possible reasons would be a modification we are hoping will make it more effective, or a change to one or more parameters to make it more or less subliminal. If this is the case you will be asked to install a new version of the software. In this event all of the assurances and commitments given concerning the software will be adhered to and maintained.
Alternative Treatments
You are probably aware that there are several approaches to the relief of anxiety and depression. Apart from the new approach being researched here, there are two main categories of approach, pharmaceutical and psychological. Drugs such as the famous Prozac and its cousins are often effective in counteracting mood swings and elevating optimism generally. These drugs are available by prescription only, and their use should be monitored, so treatment is by a medical doctor only. Specific drugs suit some people better than others, and a physician will usually advocate trying a different drug if the first one tried is ineffective or gives rise to unwelcome side effects.
Psychotherapy can be highly effective in some cases, and skilled therapists usually produce consistently better results than less skilled. There is no established criteria for skill in this field, though experience can be a good indicator. Sadly even the briefest mention of this approach would not be complete without the caution that less skilled therapists can be literally worse than useless, in that they can lead to things getting worse rather than better, or even cause problems that were absent or latent before. The best recommendation is always that of a client who has been successfully treated.
Under all circumstances with either kind of treatment it is important to 'keep a weather eye' on what is happening on a regular basis, in other words, to monitor how you are doing. Keeping a diary, or even just jotting down a few words to summarise the day, can be very helpful in this regard. Monitoring oneself is particularly difficult if one is suffering from depression and / or anxiety, and is often best undertaken with the help of a trusted friend or acquaintance if this is possible.
You are, naturally enough, entirely welcome to undertake any or all of the above while participating in this study; when the results of the research are analysed the assumption is going to be made that not everyone went on Prozac and / or started therapy at the same time as beginning to use the software!
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