Hi Judith,

I would like to introduce Ann Marie Roepke to you. She is becoming an expert on clinical and positive psychology. She is working towards a PhD at Pennsylvania University in Philadelphia. I don’t know yet how far she is in her PhD project, but I do know that she has researched SuperBetter and that she is preparing an article on that topic. The fun part is that she is sharing the preliminary results on her blog.

She has researched a group of patients which have depressions and tried to find out if SuperBetter has a positive effect on the depression, on anxiety, on the growth of life satisfaction, social support and self-efficacy. Typical for healthcare but relatively new to me as an IT teacher are the several scales that are developed for measuring depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, social support and self-efficacy. The later is also interesting for your friend Chris Kockelkoren who is researching self-efficacy in a learning environment.

To my surprise she used two versions of SuperBetter: a version based on cognitive-behavioral therapy and positive psychotherapy and a version based on simple, easy, feelgood activities. I am wondering if the difference is made by using Powerpacks or not. As you know you can ‘load’ Powerpacks which have predefined quests, bad guys and powerups or you can make these elements on your own. Perhaps she will enlighten me some more on that part.

You understand Judith, as my blogging partner, that I was blunt enough to ask her for more information and perhaps some collaboration (because I am in the beginning of my quest).

The results seem to be promising but above all very interesting. I hope she will publish her article soon or is prepared to reach out across the globe for some collaboration 😉

I’ll keep you informed.

Marcel