 Julie Clark has had depression since she was in junior high. It started when I was 12, and I've been seeing therapists off and on since that time, and I'm 56 now. She takes medication and sees a counselor, but last year Julie tried something new. Mood Helper is an internet-based website for teaching individuals skills to overcome depression. Clark and his colleagues developed Mood Helper using the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, a proven treatment for depression. The goal is to help people feel better. We can't really find the dial, if you will, for changing feelings directly. What we've got to do is take a step back to changing thinking and changing your activities, and that in turn, we believe, will help you change how you feel, feel better over time. The site helps users identify their unrealistic or unhelpful thoughts and resulting feelings, and then helps them come up with more realistic counter thoughts. The other thing in Mood Helper is there's a list of about 300 activities to do, and I would just forget, and I still have problems with my memory, and I would just forget that there are things that I like to do. For Julie, one of those things is playing with a friend's cat, a very simple activity that helps to boost her mood. The Mood Helper site also asks people to measure their mood over time. Julie says the Mood Log helps her realize she's actually making progress. I could go back and say, you know, two weeks ago, I was almost suicidal, and look at how much better I feel just in two weeks. Mood Helper is not meant to take the place of in-person therapy, but aims to fill in the gaps in between sessions. Kirby McCurtis was diagnosed with seasonal effective disorder after moving to Oregon from California. She's looking for a counselor, but in the meantime, she's enrolled in a study testing the website along with telephone counseling. Hi, Kirby. How are you? So, fill me in a little bit on what's been going on since the last time we talked, which was a week ago. My grandmother passed away right before Thanksgiving. During this session, phone coach Alison Firemark talks Kirby through the thoughts and feelings she had when her extended family gathered for the funeral. I'm going to put sad, but I don't know. I think there should be more than that. I always explain to them that we're going to personalize and customize our coaching calls, depending on what it is that they're bringing to the table. Firemark says some people need help learning the tools on the website. That's great. Yeah. Others need encouragement and support. Do you see, Kirby, how your beliefs use? Yeah. Right? Yeah. However, it actually isn't very productive. Right. Over 2,500 people in Washington and Oregon have used the Mood Helper site. Most were also taking medication and seeing a counselor. Early studies show that people who used Mood Helper had an additional 20% to 25% improvement in their depression scores. I'm Mary Soyers reporting.