Finding reliable online self-help programs
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There are tens of thousands of online self-help programs and businesses with apps and websites that tout their DIY approach to managing everything from addiction and depression to chronic pain and insomnia. A 2015 study found that around 15,000 disease-specific health apps are available, and fully a third of those deal with mental health. Some are free and some charge a fee for their “courses.” For example, there’s Depression Cure Hypnosis ($39), Stop Symptoms of Adult, Teen or Youth Depression, and Find Happiness.
Fortunately, some apps are medically reliable. Take the U.S. Department of Defense’s creation: PTSD Coach. It’s a free smartphone app that lets anyone learn about PTSD and track his or her own symptoms, and it offers help developing coping skills, doing visualization exercises and setting up a support network of friends and family members. It’s been downloaded 150,000 times. In one small study, 80 percent of users said it provided help managing symptoms and finding solutions to their coping problems.
So, while we’re supportive of your impulse to take steps to improve your well-being — and there definitely are online sites and apps that you can use to upgrade your health — we want you to be aware that there’s a lot of unscientific, sometimes costly self-help being pushed to consumers. And it’s not always easy to tell the good from the bad.
You want to use programs that are based in well-researched medical facts, can do no harm and actually WORK. And an important new study has just come out that also can improve your chances of getting scientifically validated self-help programs online and through apps.
