Machines for mental healthMachines for mental health
All In The Mind
It may be that we don't need to be face to face to provide quality mental health care.
29:20•23 Oct 2016
Machines, Smartphones and the Future of Mental Health Care
Episode Overview
- Current mental health care faces major issues with access, delays, fragmented services and uneven quality.
- Smartphones, wearables and sensors can collect objective behavioural data such as sleep, activity and social connection at large scale and low cost.
- Digital tools can deliver psychosocial support, coaching and crisis intervention in the moment rather than relying on infrequent appointments.
- New platforms like Myalo aim to quickly assess needs and guide people stepwise to appropriate support, while feeding back outcome data to refine care.
- Insell stresses that success depends on value and trust: tools must genuinely help people solve problems and handle personal data in a transparent, person-led way.
“Technology is not the magic bullet, but it might help us by combining with everything else we know to get a little bit further down the path.”
Curious about how smartphones and sensors might reshape mental health care? This instalment of All In The Mind takes you into a rapidly growing field where machines are being used to spot distress earlier, offer support in real time, and rethink what good mental health treatment looks like. Host Lynne Malcolm introduces keynote speaker Dr Tom Insell, former director of the US National Institute of Mental Health and now director of clinical neuroscience at Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences.
Speaking at the "Humans and machines: a quest for better mental health" seminar in Sydney, Insell lays out a stark picture: high suicide rates, early-onset disorders, long delays before treatment, fragmented services, and a lack of proper training for many people delivering psychosocial care. From there, he turns to technology. Insell explains how smartphones, wearables and apps can collect objective behavioural data — sleep, activity, social connection and cognition — at scale and at low cost.
He describes ideas such as digital phenotyping, crisis support delivered via phone within minutes rather than days, and tools like Verily’s Myalo, which blend mobile apps, wearables and games to quickly assess someone’s needs and guide them towards suitable support, whether that’s digital tools, urgent care or peer support. Insell is clear that mental health tech is still in its early stages.
Most projects show that something *can* be built, but haven’t yet proven that it truly changes outcomes for large numbers of people. He stresses the importance of trust, transparent use of data, and building tools that truly help people solve problems faster and more effectively than current options. Rather than promising a miracle cure, this conversation looks at how machines could sit alongside clinicians, families and communities to improve access, quality and continuity of care.
It leaves you wondering: how might everyday devices play a role in future recovery journeys?
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