Mental health apps let you access therapy from your smartpho

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Mental health apps let you access therapy from your smartpho

Post by Nipuna » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:18 pm

Apps that let users talk to human therapists or keep tabs on their own mental state are making therapy more accessible and affordable
How are you feeling today? (Image: Trureach)
How are you feeling today? (Image: Trureach)
mg22730384.200-1_800[1].jpg (79.41 KiB) Viewed 18842 times
LIE down anywhere that suits: the world is now your therapist’s couch. People with problems such as anxiety or mood swings are turning to smartphone apps for advice.

According to the US National Alliance on Medical Illness, 59 per cent of adults in the US with a mental health condition have not received relevant services in the past year. Smartphones could help make these services more accessible and affordable.

One app with this aim is PTSD Coach, which lets people discreetly screen themselves and learn more about the disorder. Another is Moodnotes, which keeps track of emotional swings and offers new perspectives on situations. And on Talkspace users can anonymously text a therapist and receive a response within the next few hours, for a weekly fee.
“People can anonymously text a therapist and receive a response within the next few hours”
More than 150,000 people have used Talkspace so far, says co-founder Oren Frank. For nearly half of them, it’s their first brush with therapy. “Therapy becomes a daily experience, much more in tune with what happens to you on a daily basis,” he says.

This week, another app in this vein debuts. TruReach Health offers free lessons in cognitive behavioural therapy, a treatment that teaches people to recognise and alter negative patterns in their thoughts or behaviours.

The lessons are given in short animated videos and between watching these, users practise what they have learned by jotting down their thoughts in a digital journal. The app will be tested at Royal Ottawa hospital in Canada and in trials with students at a nearby university.

TruReach Health was created by Jeff Perron, a clinical psychology graduate at the University of Ottawa. He says the app isn’t meant to replace face-to-face therapy, but to provide a substitute for those who don’t have access to it – whether for fear of social stigma or simply the expense.

“I love psychologists. If everyone could go and see one, then we’d all be better off, but that’s just not possible,” says Perron. “We’re giving someone a tool because, 99 times out of 100, they just don’t have access to face-to-face therapy.”

Digital therapy may not be as outlandish as it sounds. The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends certain cognitive behavioural therapy programs for people with mild depression or anxiety.

Artificial intelligence could be involved too. In May, Talkspace teamed up with the engineers behind IBM’s Watson system to find ways to utilise the wealth of message data they have generated since launching in 2012. The team hopes to build an algorithm to match new users to the therapist who would suit them best.

Talkspace is also collaborating on an even more ambitious project: a kind of crowdsourced therapist. This program would look at what a person receiving therapy types into the system, comb through Talkspace’s archives and then present the therapist with a suggested response.

“If it can be done, it will be amazing,” says Frank.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Therapist in my pocket”
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