Electronic Social Spaces, Web-Scrapers and Narrative Analysis: Problem Identification Tools for Web-based Counseling Support Services?

Web-based counseling services have grown since the inception of Internet, typically built around traditional counseling models where clients approach service providers. This paper considers an approach that is pro-active in finding individuals who may be at risk. The paper outlines the relationship between the content of text, in this instance located in electronic social spaces, and the underlying mental health of the writer. It is suggested that web scrapers could be utilized as a tool to trawl blogs to identify text patterns that may indicate that the writer may benefit from counseling support services. The paper only considers a possible technical approach and does not examine the substantial ethical issues that would arise from the implementation of such an approach in practice. The ethical aspects will be explored in a