Mental Health Mobile Apps to Empower Psychotherapy: A Narrative Review

Mental health care has been enriched with progressive use of technology during the last ten years, contributing to create new paradigms and methodologies. Mobile apps and smartphones have become the most widespread access point for many people who look for self-help in the psychological domain. In this paper, we focused on a narrative review of the state of the art of mobile apps for mental health, focusing on the blending of apps with psychotherapy contexts in what can be called “blended psychotherapy’. Research shows many hints that this might be a winning combination in many scenarios, but at the same time, many issues must still be faced in this yet emerging scientific field. In conclusion, we try to put together some major guidelines for mental health mobile app development in the context of psychological treatments.