ATLANTA, GA — The pandemic brought with it, profound changes in our society and how we function. Once such profound change, was psychotherapists having to adopt the utilization of teletherapy in a sort of crisis response, as therapy was not considered an essential service, and therefore face-to-face provision was not allowed during mandated lockdowns.

In retrospect, it is no secret that in contrast to psychical health care, the mental health practitioners and the infrastructure that leads tends to be closed-off in adopting new technology. Which is at the cost of improving care quality and patient care privacy. Therefore, the adopting of teletherapy as a crisis response if of no surprise. “Therapists did so because we had-to, for our own livelihoods primarily. Teletherapy was not at all a “new thing” when the pandemic hit at the end of 2019. Psychotherapists like Elana Dunn, LPC, CPCS starting using teletherapy in 2003 as an adjunct to face-to-face psychotherapy services. Elana went full-time with teletherapy in the summer of 2018. Providing teletherapy was not well-received by Elana’s colleagues, who mostly frowned upon her for doing so --- which only made Elana want to keep staying ahead of the curve.

Being a part of practitioner Facebook groups was a wide-open window into watching fellow colleagues panic, struggle, express anger, and frustration for not being considered essential service providers and thus feeling forced to swiftly piece-mill-adopt teletherapy to be able to keep working to earn a living.

Seeing this reaction sparked Elana to expand upon her role as a counselor supervisor, consultant, and trainer into finding a way to help therapist understand the importance of adopting new technologies when they are ‘new,’ to prevent panic adoption, improve quality of care, and increase client access to care.

“Educating clinicians has been a part of my soul just as much as being a psychotherapist. When I realized that Web3 was the ‘next thing,’ I knew that being a part of the solution, to possibly prevent another crisis-mode adoption, I could use my 20+ years of expertise to make a difference for psychotherapist and the clients we are sworn to serve.

“I am an artist. I started drawing as soon as I could hold a crayon. But, even with accolades and awards, I decided not to pursue it as a career when entering college because of hearing and witnessing the ‘starving artist. Therapists are definitely not well-paid, but with my love of inspiring people, I could turn it into a career and be able to pay the bills.”

After reading so much about Web3, seeing how healthcare corporations were already adopting Web3 technologies into client care management, privacy, quality improvement, and access, “I knew the next big thing was coming,” Elana states. Then I stumbled upon NFTs (non-fungible-tokens) as a component of Web3 and an “ah-Ha” moment happened. Elana excitedly realized how she could use her artistic ability to teach people, specifically mental health clinicians, about Web3 technologies in an easy-to-understand way. “My mother has been a teacher for 52 years, so as a teacher’s kid, I know when you introduce a concept in a simple way, it’s much easier to understand when you add-in the more complex attributes.” Elana knew that using NFTs was a sort of Course 101 into learning about Web3 technologies.

PsychologyPop, the company through which Elana creates NFTS and educates about Web3, comes from her own experience in needing to adopt, adapt, change, and be open-minded about new approaches that enhance healing. “

PsychologyPop’s first, Foundational, NFT collection ‘POP.heARTS,’ celebrates the therapeutic alliance between clients and psychotherapists. POP.heARTS are a foundation that will be expanded upon in future PsychologyPop NFT collections. By supporting PsychologyPop’s NFT projects, holders support education mental health practitioners, and others, into being early adopters of Web3 technologies. Thus, improving mental health care quality, increasing access to services, and improving privacy and security of client care records.

For more information visit the website at https://www.psychologypop.com