Tung Wah Assisted Couples Therapy

2022

Strengthening Couples' Bonds and Communication Through Emotion-Informed Therapy

​Nature of Event:	Event/on-going partnership(Workshop and Therapy)
Products Used:	Upmood Mass/Insight
Metrics Collected:	Mood, Stress Level, Valence Level, HRV (Heart Rate Variability)

Tung Wah Group of Hospitals (TWGHs) is a long-standing charitable organization in Hong Kong, dedicated to providing a comprehensive range of medical, educational, and social welfare services to the community. Recognizing the critical role of emotional connection in healthy relationships, TWGHs has innovatively incorporated Upmood's emotion monitoring technology into both specialized workshops and regular couples therapy sessions. This engagement aims to deepen understanding, facilitate communication, and enhance the overall emotional well-being of partners.

TWGHs' partnership with Upmood represents a pioneering step in modern couples therapy, moving beyond traditional methods to objectively capture the subtle, often unexpressed, emotional dynamics within relationships. The collaboration began with a unique workshop combining yoga and Upmood activities, followed by therapy. This successful initial engagement led to the integration of Upmood into ongoing couples therapy sessions. The primary goal is to provide therapists with real-time, objective emotional data, thereby enhancing the therapeutic process, promoting deeper communication, and fostering a heightened sense of bonding and partnership. Emotion monitoring is crucial here for its ability to quantify emotional shifts, validate therapeutic interventions, and offer insights into relationship dynamics that might otherwise remain hidden.

Methodology: Integrating Emotion Monitoring

The engagement began with a workshop for couples to experience yoga together with Upmood, followed by a therapy appointment. Couples felt a heightened sense of bonding and partnership after the yoga session and stayed calm/pleasant throughout the workshop. Participants wore Upmood bands to continuously track their real-time emotional responses. This allowed for immediate observation of emotional shifts during the physical activity. Following the yoga, couples attended a therapy appointment where the emotional data collected during the session could be reviewed and discussed. Building on the insights from this workshop, TWGHs integrated Upmood's technology into their regular couples therapy sessions. In these ongoing sessions, Upmood Mass is utilized for group monitoring of couples, while individual emotional data, including Heart Rate Variability (HRV), is collected via Upmood bands and analyzed by Upmood Insight. This continuous, objective data stream allows therapists to gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of relationship dynamics and individual emotional responses within the therapeutic context.

Why Upmood? 

Upmood’s real-time emotion monitoring capabilities were indispensable for TWGH's innovative approach to couples therapy. The ability to objectively track and quantify emotional states (mood, stress, valence) provided invaluable insights into the unexpressed feelings and subtle emotional shifts occurring within relationships, which subjective feedback alone often misses. Upmood Mass offered a practical solution for monitoring the emotional climate of couples during sessions, while Upmood Insight delivered granular analytics of individual emotional trends over time. This objective data empowers therapists to better understand relationship dynamics, validate the effectiveness of their interventions, and facilitate more open, targeted discussions, ultimately promoting deeper communication and enhancing mental health for partners.

Key Outcomes and Findings

The integration of Upmood's emotion monitoring technology has yielded significant positive outcomes for couples participating in TWGHs' programs:

• Enhanced Sense of Bonding: Participants in the yoga workshop reported a heightened sense of bonding and partnership after the session, with Upmood data objectively showing a calm and pleasant emotional atmosphere throughout.

• Collection of Unexpressed Feelings: The use of Upmood in regular therapy sessions allows therapists to collect objective data on unexpressed feelings, providing a more complete picture of emotional states and dynamics within the relationship.

• Deeper Understanding of Relationship Dynamics: By integrating mindfulness and emotional awareness with Upmood's objective data, therapists can gain a more profound understanding of each relationship's unique dynamics.

• Promoted Deeper Communication: The objective insights provided by Upmood facilitate more targeted and effective communication between partners, helping them address underlying emotional issues.

• Strengthened Relationships and Mental Health: This holistic approach not only leads to stronger relationships but also contributes significantly to the overall mental health and well-being of the couples.

Conclusion

The collaboration between Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and Upmood successfully demonstrates the profound impact of objective emotion monitoring in transforming couples therapy and fostering healthier relationships. By integrating Upmood's technology, TWGHs has created a more insightful, data-driven approach to understanding and enhancing emotional connection between partners, promoting both relationship strength and individual mental health. This project highlights Upmood's potential to provide deep, measurable insights into emotional states, enabling organizations to deliver more effective, personalized, and impactful therapeutic and wellness programs for couples.

Thank you!

We extend our deepest gratitude to Tung Wah Group of Hospitals for their pioneering spirit and invaluable partnership in this innovative approach to couples and relationship wellness.

If you're interested in conducting your own emotion-driven wellness program or trying out Upmood products, please send us an email at support@upmood.com.