Quick answer: If you use a therapy app for mental health and your symptoms don’t improve, then it may be time to consider support from a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor, either virtually or in person. Note: for severe, disruptive, debilitating symptoms, we encourage seeking professional help sooner rather than later.
Key Points:
- Therapy apps can be effective for some people, some diagnoses, and some levels of symptom severity
- Anxiety: therapy apps can help reduce symptoms and increase likelihood of remission
- Depression: therapy apps can help reduce symptoms of depression and lead to improvements in quality of life
- Stress: therapy apps can help reduce stress and improve overall physical/mental wellness
Therapy Apps: Part of a New Approach to Mental Health Treatment
Ten years ago, therapy apps were brand new, and now, after they’ve been around for a while, tested by millions of users, many people who use these apps – or are considering giving them a try – wonder if they’re effective enough, and want to know how to decide if they need more than a therapy app to help manage mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and other diagnoses.
Expanding access to mental health treatment is critical in addressing the mental health crisis in the U.S. Although there’s less stigma around mental health treatment than ten years ago, and more people are asking for help every day, we still have a significant amount of work to do before we completely normalize mental health treatment, and everyone who needs help feels confident about getting the help they need.
For instance, data on what we call the treatment gap – meaning the difference between the number of people wo needed treatment and the number of people who got treatment – shows the following gaps in 2022 and 2023:
- Any mental illness: 27.1 million people diagnosed with any type of mental illness didn’t get treatment
- Serious mental illness: 4.2 million people diagnosed with serious mental illness didn’t get treatment
- Major depressive episode (MDE): 7.3 million people who had a major depressive episode (MDE) didn’t get treatment
- Suicidal ideation: 6.1 million people who reported suicidal ideation didn’t get treatment
- Suicide plan: 6.2 million people who made a suicide plan didn’t get treatment
To address the treatment gap, new developments in technology such as telehealth and mobile therapy apps show real promise. The effectiveness of telehealth is well-established, with the recent COVID-era proving its value.
But what about therapy apps?
Do they really work – or do you need more than a therapy app for mental health support?
The Most Common Therapy Apps: What Kind of Treatment Do I Get?
A paper published in 2022 called ”A Review of Popular Apps for Depression, Anxiety, and Well-Being” identified the following three categories of therapy apps in regular use today:
- Meditation/mindfulness
- Journaling/self-monitoring
- AI chatbots
Among these three categories, the research team downloaded and reviewed the contents/techniques of two of the most popular apps in each category, for a total of six:
- Meditation/mindfulness
- Calm
- Headspace
- Journaling/self-monitoring
- Reflectly
- Daylio
- AI chatbots:
- Replika
- Wysa
At the time of publication in 2022, those six apps accounted for 83 percent of all therapy app use among adults in the U.S. The specific content of these apps varied, but followed basic patterns. Most apps included:
- Mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Less common – but still present – components of therapy apps included:
- Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI)
- Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA).
Apps designed to help people reduce drinking alcohol included:
- Personalized feedback on drinking patterns
- Personalized feedback on motives for drinking
- Strategies to manage urges and cravings
- Exercises to enhance emotional awareness
Those are the big picture facts on therapy apps – but we left one important category out.
How many people use mental health/wellness apps?
Data from Business of Apps in the publication Wellness App Revenue and Usage Statistics (2025) shows the following:
- 2020: 85 million users
- 2021: 82 million users
- 2022: 70 million users
- 2023: 62 million users
- 2024: 50 million users
While use decreased significantly after the pandemic, these figures show that a significant percentage of adults in the U.S. With an adult population of about 265 million, almost 20 percent of adults used a mental health or wellness app in 2024. That’s why we need to know everything we can about them: millions of people use them.
Next, let’s examine data that assess the effectiveness of therapy apps for mental health.
Therapy Apps: Do They Work?
In general, for mild to moderate mental health challenges, mental health apps can help people manage symptoms and improve quality of life. A meta-analysis called “Effectiveness of Mobile App-Based Psychological Interventions: A Systematic Review of the Literature” examined the impact of therapy apps on various mental health disorders.
Here’s what they found.
Impact of Therapy App for Mental Health
Anxiety (three studies):
- Significant reductions in anxiety symptoms
- Increased likelihood of remission from generalized anxiety disorder
- Improvements in anxiety symptoms persisted for over a month
Depression (three studies):
- Significant reductions in depressive symptoms
- Significant improvements in mood
- Decrease in loneliness
- Increase in daily energy
- Decrease in daily fatigue
- Improvements in depressive symptoms stable at four-week follow-up
Stress Management (four studies):
- Significant reductions in overall stress
- Reductions in perceived stress
- Significant improvements in general health
- Increase in academic productivity
- Decrease in academic impairment
- Improved sleep
- Decreased fatigue
- Increased energy
- Improved emotional wellbeing
Drinking and Smoking Tobacco (two studies):
- Reduction in quantity of drinking
- Reduction in frequency of drinking
- Fewer cigarettes per day
Binge Drinking and Concurrent Drinking/Smoking
- Apps showed no impact on binge drinking
- Apps showed no impact on concurrent drinking alcohol/smoking cigarettes
We should clarify that all these studies examined the impact of apps on patients who reported psychological symptomology and distress, rather than serious mental illness. This means we should use care in how we interpret these results, because we know the most effective treatment for serious mental illness is in-person care with a qualified therapist. In fact, studies show that just one in-person session can change the trajectory of a mental illness.
Do You Need More Than an App?
The simplest way to answer that question is by answering this one:
If you use a therapy app for mental health, have your symptoms improved?
If you answer yes, then you may not need more than a therapy app for your mental health. However, we encourage you to seek a complete psychiatric evaluation from a mental health professional to ensure you have the help you need.
If you’re having mental health problems and think you may have a mental health disorder, one way to decide whether you need more than a therapy app for your mental health is to gauge the severity of your symptoms, but please keep in mind that only a mental health professional can diagnose a mental health disorder.
With that said, you can get an idea of how serious your symptoms are by answering the following questions:
Do your symptoms cause significant emotional distress or discomfort?
Do your symptoms cause significant physical distress or discomfort? (e.g. racing heartbeat, nausea)
Have your symptoms ever prevented you from meeting your responsibilities at work?
Have your symptoms ever had a negative impact on your schoolwork or academic achievement?
Do your symptoms disrupt your family relationships?
Do your symptoms disrupt your peer relationships?
Have your symptoms disrupted intimate or romantic relationships?
Have your symptoms ever prevented you from doing something you planned to do, like go out with friends, try a new hobby, or go somewhere new?
If you answer “No” to all those questions, then you may not need more than a therapy app for your mental health. We still suggest you seek a professional evaluation, though, because if you’re here reading this article, there’s most likely something going on that you want to resolve, and a mental health professional can help you do just that.
In fact, that’s exactly what they spend years training for.
If you answer “Yes” to any of those questions, then you may need more than a therapy app for your mental health – and we recommend arranging for a full psychiatric evaluation administered by a trained mental health professional sooner, rather than later.
What’s Therapy Like?
If you want to know whether you need more than an app to help you manage your mental health, you’re probably also curious about what treatment is like, in general. Which means you want to know what therapy is like.
We’ll start by telling you what it’s not like:
You’re unlikely to lay back on a sofa while an older man with a white beard and tobacco pipe says, “Tell me about your mother.”
That could happen – and yes, your family relationships do have an impact on your mental health – but it probably won’t. What’s more likely to happen is that you and your therapist will meet, establish a rapport, discuss your symptoms and how they impact your life, then set goals for treatment. Next – depending on your diagnosis and the techniques your therapist uses, you’ll learn practical tools to manage your symptoms. That often involves:
- Identifying patterns of thought that cause problems or distress
- Learning to process those thoughts in a healthy, productive manner
- Identifying emotions that cause problems or distress
- Learning to process those emotions in a healthy, productive manner
- Identifying patterns of behavior that cause problems or distress
- Learning tools to modify, reduce, or eliminate those behaviors or patterns of behavior
That’s not all that may happen – and those things might not happen in that order. The idea here is that during therapy, you engage in a practical, evidence-based, results-oriented process designed to improve your life. That’s true whether you use an app or you decide to use an app or choose in-person therapy.
If you choose therapy with a live therapist, though, you can expect a treatment plan to include a combination of individual psychotherapy, group therapy, medication, family involvement, lifestyle changes, complementary therapies, and peer support.
Common psychotherapeutic approaches include:
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Motivational interviewing
Group therapy may include skill-building workshops focused on:
- Relationship skills
- Emotional coping skills
- Communication skills
Medications may include:
- Antidepressants
- Anxiolytics (anxiety medication)
- Antipsychotics, for schizophrenia and disorders with psychosis
Lifestyle changes may include:
- Healthy eating
- Sleep hygiene
- Exercise and activity
- Stress reduction
Complementary therapies may include things like:
- Expressive therapies: writing, visual art, music
- Yoga/mindfulness/meditation
- Outdoor/experiential activities
So, based on all of the above, how do you decide what you need?
A Combination of Expert Advice and Personal Preference
You can decide if you need more than a therapy app for mental health based on reading the information in this article, comparing it to what you think would work for you, and then – preferably after consulting with a professional – making your choice.
If you like to do things on-demand, with no schedule, on your own time, then an app might be for you. An app might be for you if cost is an issue, too. But if you know that human contact makes a difference, then you may need more than an app. If you learn better with hands-on, personal instruction, then an in-person therapist might be the right choice. But if you like to learn things independently – an autodidact – then an app might be for you.
However, if your mental health issue create serious disruption in your life, we encourage you to think about in-person treatment. Also, consider this insight from Dr. C Vaile Wright of the American Psychological Association (APA), published in the 2021 article “Mental Health Apps Are Gaining Traction”:
“Apps might be a gateway to subsequent care. Someone might download a CBT app, realize it’s helpful, and then find a therapist to help more. I really don’t think people are turning to mindfulness apps as a replacement for therapy. A lot of work that happens in therapy actually happens outside the therapy office. Apps can facilitate that work.”
At the end of the day, we may be creating a false dilemma: why on or the other?
Why not both?
Try an app, find out you need more help, then try a therapist, and keep the app to complement your in-person therapy. That’s a realistic scenario, because healing rarely happens in a predictable, linear manner. You can apply a truly holistic perspective to recovery, and use whatever tools work best for you at the time: that’s how therapy can adapt to your life, and you can adapt your life to therapy.
How to Find Support: Online Resources
If you or someone you know needs professional treatment and support for mental health issues, please call us for a free assessment. IN addition, you can use the following online resources to find expert help near you:
