AMBIT - opensource therapy?

We have referred to AMBIT as an "opensource therapy".

'Open Source' refers to a model for the development of computer software that is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the single large (multinational) company that designs a product, wraps it in layers of secret code, and sells it, and subsequent updates.

An opensource project keeps the "source code" wide open on the internet, so that any programmer can examine it and offer improvements which are then debated and, if found to be effective, accepted into the core by the steering group. Software developed in this way tends to be "lighter", and much faster to adapt to the needs of users, and is generally easy to get hold of. A well known example would be the freely downloadable browser, "Firefox".

Parallels - an Open Source Therapy

There are some parallels between the "open source" movement in computer programming and the hierarchically devolved model of treatment manualization proposed by TiddlyManuals, and in general the AMBIT approach draws some of its inspiration from the Opensource movement in computing.

The Open source movement has a motto which, in their case, relates to computer code, but which might just as easily relate to our thoughts and beliefs about why we do what we do in therapy - that is:

"Release early. Release often"

By this programmers mean that they publish their early attempts to make something work. There is no spur towards improving what I am working on more powerful than the anxiety that what I have released to the world is 'not quite good enough yet' (or worse...) Nor is there any better way to gather real feedback than to "put it out there".

In a sense the opensource programmers' explicit efforts to broadcast their intentionalities, and their "best guesses so far" (by blogging, publishing or releasing code on the web) is not so very far removed from the The Therapist's Mentalizing Stance - whereby my curiosity is partly about checking very frequently with my client to see if my ideas (Marked as such: "Here's an idea that I have in my mind, it may make no sense at all, but what do you make of it...") have any resonance with the client.

At the level of the team 'blogging' its own ideas about "what works here, with these young people" in their local version of the manual the parallels are even easier to see.