AfterParty Answers: Do Mental Health Apps Work?

Over here at AfterParty, we receive an onslaught of questions from people about addiction and recovery. And well, our new video series AfterParty Answers gives us an opportunity to address them. In this episode, Anna David and Danielle Stewart reach into the AfterParty archives to answer a reader’s question about mental health apps.

In case you haven’t heard, mental health apps are all the rage now—venture capitalists are dumping money into this market and various apps, including some focused entirely on addiction and recovery, are popping up everywhere.

But how much do they help?

Some of these apps, particularly the recovery ones, are just meant to connect people with like-minded folks struggling with similar issues. But others have a more specific focus—say, Koko, where people are relying on feedback from strangers for their oftentimes quite serious issues. Others, like Joyable, provide users with CBT exercises and while that’s wonderful, how effective are these in the end? Well, as we wrote in December of 2015, studies show that these apps work best in conjunction with mental health professionals and if you have a mental health professional, why do you need the app?

In the end, those who feel like they need mental health help may be far better off looking into therapy. Yes, it costs money and many of these apps are free but is there anything more worth spending cash on than your mental health? And there are far more sliding scale therapists out there than many may think.

Of course this is a complicated question so for a longer answer, check out out this vid. While we aren’t in any way medical professions (emphasis on “aren’t in any way medical professionals”), we are sober folks who have not only grappled with some of the issues being asked about but have also written scads of articles for this very site on them. Tune in every Wednesday to see what you, our faithful readers, want to know.

Want to see all of our AfterParty Answers videos? Good news! You can simply click here!

Photo by Andy Marx

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