How much should you trust BetterHelp, Talkspace, Cerebral and other mental health start-ups touted by celebrities?

When Pat Paulson’s son told her he was feel­ing anx­ious and depressed at col­lege, Paul­son went through her Blue Cross Blue Shield provider direc­to­ry and start­ed call­ing men­tal health ther­a­pists. No providers in the Wis­con­sin city where her son’s uni­ver­si­ty is locat­ed had open­ings. So she bought a month­ly sub­scrip­tion to Bet­ter­Help, a Moun­tain View,…

Read More

FDA clears first CBT-based digital therapeutic to treat substance abuse disorders

__________ The FDA just approved the first app for treat­ing sub­stance abuse (CNBC): “The app, devel­oped by a start-up called Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, is designed to be pre­scribed by clin­i­cian and used along­side coun­sel­ing. Pear’s tech­nol­o­gy dig­i­tizes a form of talk ther­a­py called cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, or CBT, which focus­es on “exam­in­ing the rela­tion­ships between thoughts,…

Read More

Questioning brain health status quo in depression and Alzheimer’s

Two good recent pieces in The New York Times bring to the fore­front the need to ques­tion sta­tus quo mind­set and prac­tices about how to mea­sure and enhance brain health. Sleep Ther­a­py Seen as an Aid for Depres­sion “Cur­ing insom­nia in peo­ple with depres­sion could dou­ble their chance of a full recov­ery, sci­en­tists are reporting.…

Read More

Closing the Circuit: Helen Mayberg’s research could revolutionize depression treatment

At some point in their lives, 5 to 12 per­cent of Amer­i­can men and 10–25 per­cent of women will suf­fer an episode of depres­sion, mak­ing it the most com­mon­ly diag­nosed men­tal dis­or­der today. Unlike nor­mal sad­ness, which pass­es with time, depres­sion feels unstop­pable and caus­es peo­ple to lose inter­est in near­ly all activ­i­ties. Because it…

Read More