A local African American psychiatrist released a free online app to help people cope with the emotional stresses of the pandemic in healthy ways, such as getting vaccinated and following mitigation procedures.
“In talking to people in the community who haven’t been vaccinated or don’t take mask-wearing seriously, it’s so clear, how many are misinformed, and how badly, more accurate persuasive information and imagery is needed to change hearts, minds and behavior,” Dr. Dale Anderson said.
The CoPow app, an abbreviation of “cognition power,” uses optical illusions and video effects combined with interactive cognitive therapy skills training. It is presented in a game-like format to engage viewers to replace self-defeating thoughts in their minds with more healthy, constructive ideas to solve pandemic problems, according to Anderson.
“In the app, I analogize this to when you give a hunting dog a sniff of the hair of a predator to track it and get rid of it.”
“My main goals for the app were for people to learn and recognize mistakes that we all make in our thoughts,” he said. “To deal with any kind of challenge, we need to think logically … so we can make good decisions for good health. I think that it could be particularly helpful with respect to the pandemic because the decisions people make about if they want to get vaccinated are life and death decisions where I’ve seen people lose loved ones because of it.”
TheCoPow app offers a choice of 12 topics, ranging from conquering fear of vaccines and procrastination about getting vaccinated to anger about masks, sadness from being cooped up at home, parenting problems, drinking excessively to cope, death of a loved one due to COVID-19, and more.
“I’ve shown the app to over 90 professionals including local physicians, mental health professionals, healthcare administrators, and among them was the former Director of the Pandemic Task Force of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area of Missouri, Dr. Alex Garza, and their responses were overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “This is my way to help, and it’s free to the public.”
According to Anderson, he developed a cognitive therapy app over the past 10 years.
“I have found cognitive therapy useful, so I have incorporated it into my practice. It started with a PowerPoint presentation to teach people how to use it, then gradually it grew into an app,” he said. “When the pandemic hit, I decided to address it.”
A north St. Louis native, Anderson completed both his medical training and his psychiatric residency at Washington University School of Medicine, and an additional two-year Associate Fellow program at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center with special emphasis on stress management.
He has been in private practice since 1985, has taught principles of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment at Washington University, and has served as Phototherapy Program for Seasonal Depression medical director at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center.
In June 2020, Anderson launched a smaller version of it to help the public learn more about it and introduced it to his 800 patients he could not see regularly.
“There was a young African American man who told me he was afraid to get the [COVID-19] vaccine because he didn’t want the virus in his body,” he said. “He didn’t have a clear understanding of what the vaccine actually is.”
According to the CDC, the mRNA vaccine does not contain virus cells, but it does contain material from the virus that causes COVID-19 that gives our cells instructions for how to make a harmless protein that is unique to the virus.
“The vaccine has protein building blocks … to essentially give our bodies a way to build our defenses,” he said. “In the app, I analogize this to when you give a hunting dog a sniff of the hair of a predator to track it and get rid of it.”
In the app, there is a four-minute introduction, and a few examples of topics, including “Fear of the Vaccine” and “Anger about Stay-at-Home Orders/Social Distance.”
“I thought about the patients that I’ve been seeing when the pandemic began because I saw people who were fearful about catching it, and their anxiety levels also rose because of it,” he said. “They weren’t thinking of how they could prevent it, but rather focusing on their fear of getting it. And so, I chose these topics because people needed more education about COVID-19.”
