Mental Health Apps Feel Generic and Hard to Stick With
10 posts across 8 communities in the last 60 days; 30% from r/mentalhealth.
“Hi HN, A quick note on the background: I am not a researcher or AI expert—I am just a non-expert working in healthcare who went through a period of severe psychological distress and grief. I provided my raw personal narrative, intuitive realizations, and painful lived…”
“I’m currently doing Meru health through Kaiser, unfortunately it ends after 12 weeks so I’m looking into other therapy apps. Anyone have a good experience with any of these or other apps? Headway Teladoc”
“I’m curious to hear about your experiences with them. What do you like about the app you use, and what do you dislike or wish it did differently? Would love to hear what you’ve found genuinely helpful (or not helpful) and why!”
Individuals using digital mental health tools, including apps and AI chatbots, face challenges related to engagement, privacy, clinical quality, and cultural relevance. Sustaining use, understanding the impact of these tools, and navigating potential risks are key concerns. The effectiveness of these tools is often undermined by user experience and trust issues.
SOURCES (49)
I have been dealing with depression for the past 6 years and I've recently been trying to get better. When talking about my situation, I often found it hard to pinpoint the…
“I’m currently doing Meru health through Kaiser, unfortunately it ends after 12 weeks so I’m looking into other therapy apps. Anyone have a good experience with any of these or other apps? Headway Teladoc submitted by /u/BusyDevelopment9678 [link] [comments]”
“I’m curious to hear about your experiences with them. What do you like about the app you use, and what do you dislike or wish it did differently? Would love to hear what you’ve found genuinely helpful (or not helpful) and why! submitted by /u/beathinks [link] [comments]”
“Mental health is something that is often talked about, but not always truly understood. When people hear words like depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions, they sometimes immediately create assumptions about the person behind the diagnosis. They may see the disorder first before seeing the person. But behind every diagnosis is a person with their own experiences, struggles, fears, and story. One thing that mental health awareness has taught me is that we never really know what so”
“Hi HN, A quick note on the background: I am not a researcher or AI expert—I am just a non-expert working in healthcare who went through a period of severe psychological distress and grief. I provided my raw personal narrative, intuitive realizations, and painful lived experience, and worked closely with Gemini to synthesize and structure them into this slide deck. I archived it on Zenodo so it wouldn’t be lost. I’m not looking to engage in heavy academic debate. I simply wanted to share my N=1 j”
“I'm curious if this would be helpful for a caregiver of someone that demands a lot? If so, I'm interested... Android or Web.”
“Mental health apps focus on making me feel relaxed when I need it, but when the meditation or the soundscape or the song ends, it's just a matter of time before I feel stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed again. I tried looking for alternatives that allowed me to gradually develop a good amount of tolerance for discomfort, but couldn't find any. I was also thinking of going down the therapy route, but it just felt like overkill. That's when I decided to make my own app to leverage stren”
“My therapist (mental health) has been talking up LENS (low energy neurofeedback system) to me as a modality for anxiety. Both she and her daughter have done several sessions and she says it works really well and is nice bc it’s more passive than EMDR or other neurofeedback techniques. I looked it up and there’s some evidence for chronic pain patients as well as some neuro disorders like TBI and post-concussion syndrome. I’m going to put something together for the higher ups in my organization to”
“Recently moved from facilitating teen DBT/CBT/etc. groups in-person to online. Teen engagement in person was already like herding cats. Virtual has been a challenge. It’s summer, they don’t want to be here, they are in back-to-back sessions, they can easily scroll/text/game without my knowledge during group. My coworkers also have trouble and have shared a few resources. Many of them seem to have lost steam and give the kids 20+ minutes of quiet time. For non-lesson time we play games like trivi”
“[Headspace] ★ 1/5 (v8.19.0) — Preface: Yes I understand that this app isn’t a substitute for medical care. AI therapy is incredibly harmful, it enables dangerous behaviors. Not only is it in the unavoidable ai therapy model in this app but it’s also rampant in the voices. Not all of them are human. The scripts are not all human. The titles, art, etc are so clearly AI. Robots should not be allowed to give human care. Only other humans understand what truly needs to be said. This app is AI slop.”
“Hey! 👋 I'm a UX design student at Humber College (Canada) running research for my Capstone project — a mental health app that uses a character to help young adults track anxiety in a low-stigma, non-clinical way. I need your help to understand how people actually feel about mental health apps — what makes you stick with them, what makes you quit, and whether a playful approach feels more approachable than traditional clinical tools. 🎯 Survey takes about 5 minutes, fully anonymous. You'”
“Has anyone had any success with the meditation apps? Been really trying to give meditation a try and have heard good things about some of the apps. Any success stories?”
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