Chapter 5 164 were prone to self-injurious behavior at a certain level of arousal was mentioned several times as a potential ‘trigger’ to actually resort to self-injuring. Although feedback by the e-coach should be triggered automatically, patients expressed a strong overarching need to retain autonomy: additional coaching by the mHealth system, if to be implemented, has to remain optional, noncompulsory and under ultimate control of the patient. For them, it should be an option that they could enable or disable. Plus, the form and content of additional coaching, if present, needs to be adjustable to the personal preferences of each user. Patients gave examples such as the option to add their own tips and strategies to the coaching provided. Although they strongly favored the option to share recorded data with therapists, they wanted this to be under their control as well. So, recorded data is to be shared by manual operation, not automatically. Patients further expressed the need to be able to check their arousal level at every given moment. Therapists had different thoughts regarding the perceived need for ultimate control by the patient. Perhaps better labeled as a ‘dilemma’, therapists also perceived a need for increased control and autonomy by the patients but at the same time expressed a need for themselves to hold control over the e-coaching system. While two therapists were still mainly advocating the benefits of letting the patient have control over the e-coach, one thought it actually was a bad idea. Partial control by the patient was agreed upon by all. 5.1.2 Personas The information gathered during the interviews was used to form personas: one for the patients and one for the therapists. Demographics such as age, sex, level of education were based on overall statistics of all patients currently in treatment and therapists working at the treatment center. A detailed description of the average patient treated in the clinic is shown in the form of a persona in Figure 4. The average patient is a woman in her late twenties. She has a borderline personality disorder. Her emotional life is characterized by frequently having unpredictable and rapid fluctuations in intensity of emotional arousal, which often remain ‘unnoticed’ by her. The average therapist working in the clinic is a woman in her early forties. During her job as a psychotherapist, she is involved in individual and group psychotherapy. Next to psychotherapy, she supports patients morally and provides them with mental health related practical advice. Part of her work involves training emotion recognition skills with patients. The average therapist has a moderate interest in and affinity with technology. Figure 5 shows the persona representing the therapists.
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