Abstract:
Many individuals with anxiety in South Africa experience low affordability and accessibility to mental health care, thus limiting their understanding, and creating negative perceptions surrounding anxiety. Educating the communities and developing suitable interventions for anxiety is thus of great importance. Psycho-education is an intervention that entails educating individuals about their psychological condition. Practice and research in neuro-psycho-education as an adjunct to therapy in this context is limited, and thus warrants further exploration.
The neuro-psycho-educational tool used in this study is a vimeo, which through a simple narrative (story) and visual animation, informs the viewer of the different brain regions involved in anxiety. Furthermore, the neural events that occur in the brain when one experiences and attempts to regulate anxiety is outlined. This study investigates the utility of this vimeo as a tool for individuals with anxiety. This utility was explored through eliciting the participants’ experience of watching the vimeo, as well as their understanding and perceptions of anxiety and how it relates to their brain functioning. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews with individuals from a community clinic in Gauteng and analysed using thematic analysis.
The findings highlight the vimeo’s utility in educating individuals with anxiety on the various causes of anxiety, the important role of the brain, and ways anxiety can be managed by reflecting on the internal brain processes. Participants relayed that the vimeo was a valuable resource for knowledge acquisition and provided alternative and novel perspectives on understanding anxiety and skills for managing anxiety. These findings can help direct the development of neuro-psycho-educational tools, to be used as a cost-effective adjunct to therapy, in resource-limited settings.
