DATELINE–Los Angeles

Couples learn to RELAT using innovative software.

Luis Alvan is happily married and has two children. He is a charismatic senior employee at an advertising agency in Los Angeles and regularly visits his extended family in Venezuela. Three years ago, Alvan was hospitalized after attempting to commit suicide.

The story of Mr. Alvan’s recovery is well-known in academic circles. He was one of the first patients to participate in an experimental computer-based treatment program pioneered at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Luis was an exceptional patient,” recalls Dr. Brian Wiggins, “perhaps because he and his wife were so close before the crisis began.” Dr. Wiggins met the Alvans at the Century City Wellness Center where the patient and his wife were attending weekly counseling sessions. After a brief interview, Dr. Wiggins invited the Alvan couple to take part in his pilot computer therapy program.

While the use of computers for testing and therapy is a long-standing practice among developmental and child psychologists, Dr. Wiggins and his staff are the first to develop an intensive therapeutic software system for adults.

Luis and Lisa Alvan had been married for seven years when they noticed the tension growing between them. “Every time we talked,” Mrs. Alvan candidly admits, “Luis would become upset and begin criticizing me for not being a good mother or not earning enough at work. It got to the point where we only talked about him.”

Mr. Alvan doesn’t dispute his wife’s recollection of those bitter times. “I was on an emotional rollercoaster,” he responds, “and I had to bring everyone around me down each time I felt myself dropping.” In fact the stresses on his relationship had grown so overwhelming that he attempted to overdose on sleeping pills and alcohol after a particularly nasty argument with his wife.

When Dr. Wiggins began working with the Alvans, traditional therapy had failed both Luis and his marriage. He had been placed on anti-depressants after his suicide attempt and everyone was worried that he might relapse. When Dr. Wiggins suggested that they advance their therapy using software, Luis and Lisa did not hesitate to accept his offer.

The program is called RELAT, short for Responsible Empathy Lifestyle Adjustment Therapy. RELAT, pronounced “relate", is essentially an e-mail program with a smart spell-checking function. At scheduled intervals, the couple communicates their hopes and worries via local e-mail messages. But before each message is sent, a built-in program scans the text for aggressive, deceptive or otherwise unproductive language.

Once RELAT identifies a phrase that may hinder the communication process, it automatically suggests what are deemed helpful alternatives. For example, the statement “I don’t know what you’re talking about” triggers the phrase “Perhaps I am not letting myself see your point of view.”

RELAT can even learn over time to recognize idiosyncratic and recurring lapses in a couple’s conversational patterns. In other words, it can get to know when a conversation is taking a turn for the worse. According to Dr. Wiggins, over 50 couples have been helped by the RELAT program since 1995.

Today, Lisa still looks through the old RELAT e-mails from time to time, even though the couple have successfully completed the program. “I still cry when I read them. Especially the last ones,” Lisa confesses. “But when I see Luis playing with our two-year-old, I know everything’s going to be okay.”