AI & Mental Health: leading the movement to embrace innovation

In 2019, nearly a billion people were living with a mental disorder (World Health Organization, 2022).

The word “living” could be re-think in its meaning and underling implications as it appears that “surviving” would be more appropriate as it emphasizes more accurately what is felt by oneself.

Our understanding of mental health is still lacking. Psychotherapy – with or without medication – is usually needed along with the support of the person's closed ones – partner, parent, brother or sister, friend – and is crucial. And beyond the support, the love that can be felt just by looking into their eyes. Yet, the frustration lies there: it is too often not enough as you cannot grasp fully what one another feels, think, or deeply understand their recovery journey path. As it has touched my family over the years, it has been crucial for me to deeply understand mental health disorders and its multiple prisms and underlining consequences.

During the multiple lockdowns, students struggled with isolation – as classes were no longer taught onsite but online – but also finding a job in an unprecedent economic uncertainty context. Mental disorders – including depression, anxiety and eating disorders to name a few – are the leading cause of disability. During the 1st year of COVID-19, depression and anxiety soared by more than 25%. According to WHO Secretary-General António Guterres, those mental disorders remain one of the "the most neglected aspects of healthcare". Acting on the way we address mental health is a priority but there is no clear solution and one size doesn’t fit all. Wicked problems (Weber and Rittel, 1973) often crop up when organizations must face constant change or unprecedented challenges (Camillus, 2008). The problem involves many stakeholders with different values and priorities. The issue’s roots are complex and tangled. 

Identified vessels to lead the “movement”

Significant progress has been made: many nations have created, improved, and consolidated mental health policies or strategies and awareness rose. The voice of people experiencing mental health disorders have been amplified via advocacy campaigns and hand-hand contributed to scientific research.

There are currently many useful, empirically supported manuals, guidelines, and other resources accessible for use in the field of mental health.

According to lead entrepreneur, philanthropist Akhtar Badshah (2021), “movements” should be created as they open the door for synergies among ideas and people, enabling them to switch their absolute center to others. Compassion should be a mandatory ingredient to tackle these challenges. The majority of people are not going to do that but each of us can contribute to it by leading the path and I am convinced that it is key to conduct change. The compassion could be located within the core of the organization at corporate level as “the company [should be] the vessel that propels that movement”. 

If Akhtar Badshah defines movements as synchronization of employees’ desires and purposes, it can be can safely assumed that adding collaborators needs are more crucial in this context. Companies can combine new managerial practices, positive leadership and partnerships with startups focused on mental health to align employees’ purpose, desires and needs.

A “Greater Exploration” answering a “Great Resignation”

 As a reaction to soaring burnouts reported during the pandemic - 49% of employees globally reporting burnout symptoms - (McKinsey & Company, 2021), many organizations were forced to reconsider the importance of work-life balance and increase the level of flexibility offered to collaborators in their ways of working. If the pandemic promoted new ways of working enabling increased flexibility with asynchronous cross collaboration as well as hybrid work – work from home and at the office – the number of employee resignations skyrocketed. As a matter of fact, nearly 57 million Americans have quit their job between January 2021 and February 2022 (Harvard Business Review, 2022). Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company highlights these figures:

 “People aren’t just quitting their jobs, they’re rejecting the idea that burnout is the price they have to pay for success” 

 Companies can play a significant role on providing work and personal equilibrium as they can leverage legal background – mandatory medical consultations, voluntary leave, additional working hours limitation – to secure a healthier working environment. Many Europeans countries – France, Sweden, Germany – can be seen as well advanced on the matter.

Strong of these organizational advances, companies should communicate their willingness to put at the same level mental and physical health. Employee wellbeing is becoming an ESG criteria for companies – to retain talent for e.g. – and investors. 

New managerial practices are necessary to help companies conduct those macro-changes. This “great exploration” is shaped by the emergence of a new types of management. One recent movement is Care management, stating that collective intelligence must be balanced by an individualized management (Dejoux, 2023). Care management’s pillars can be defined as follows: 

1.     Identify one’s skilling to better understand oneself such as memory, focus time, energy) and limit employee over engagement.

2.     Reinforce Individualized relationships: acknowledge individual’s singularity – emotional and psychological – and foster 1-1 communication between manager and collaborator.

Compagnies are the sum of their employees’ uniqueness, unicity and awareness of their desires and purposes directly impacting their engagement. Therefore, positive leadership embrace the shift towards a more caring and wellbeing culture centric in the workplace.

Fostering innovation through new ventures using cutting-edge technology

To answer this global health crisis, we must foster innovation using technological advances. Mental health in the workplace is also the value proposition of several tech startups. In 2021, venture capital funding in mental health companies and technology rose to an all-time high totaling $4.8 billion (RockHealth, 2023).

MindFi (US based) is a community-first approach to employee wellbeing by bringing holistic employee assistance programs – 3 pillars of care covering topics across 16 wellbeing domains – trusted by leading employers such as KPMG, Deutsche Bank, Hitachi, Health Science Authority. Moodwork (French based) offers a comprehensive solution that includes personalized assessments, self-help resources, and on-demand coaching sessions with certified professionals. The platform is designed to help employees improve their mental health and well-being in areas such as stress management, resilience, and emotional intelligence. One of the unique features of Moodwork is its ability to tailor the program to each individual and organization’s specific needs. The platform provides real-time data and analytics to employers, allowing them to track the impact of the program and make informed decisions about the well-being of their employees.

Mokacare (French based and backed by Origins fund) help connect employees to referenced psychologists, access digital content from the self-care space for employees but also provides HR teams tailored awareness sessions for teams and managers. Mokacare’s main differentiator is its focus on patient engagement and education. The platform provides users with personalized health information and reminders, empowering them to take an active role in their healthcare. They have key partnerships including Engie, Spendesk, l’Oréal, Strapi and Qonto. 

To navigate through the mental health startups landscape, One Mind PsyberGuide – a nonprofit Consumer Reports–style website – evaluates their credibility, user experience, transparency and professional reviews.

These solutions address a pan of mental health and if navigated correctly can bring significant positive results. However, some gaps remain.

To bridge those gaps, advanced analytics and digital technology can be brought to light. A growing body of research (Shatte et al, 2019; Su et al,2020; Hickey et al, 2021) highlights the positive impact of artificial intelligence in improving the response mental health disorders. Machine Learning – with deep and reinforcement learning techniques – mainly applies to four mental health application domains:

1.     Detection and diagnosis

2.     Prognosis

3.     Treatment and support

4.     Public health, research and clinical administration

Majority of studies has focused on the detection and diagnosis of mental health conditions. Generative AI uses deep neural networks trained on large datasets to generate new content whether it’s text, code, images, or videos. For example, ChatGPT relies on reinforcement learning and human feedback (RLHF) 2013 a method using human demonstrations to guide the model toward a desired behavior (OpenAI, 2023). 

Data can be collected through diversified sources such as social media and their underlining communities – Twitter and Reddit – to conduct sentiment analysis for example to detect psychological distress and harassment. Tracking vital signs, neural activity, heart rate, skin temperature and conductance response provide important information about an individual's health. 

Nowatch, the 1st awareable watch, tracks mental – under or overstimulation, anxiety, and stress – and physical health by collecting your bio-data – electrodermal activity to measure skin conductance and infrared (PPG) sensors to monitor cardiac functions – enabling real-time feedback on how to restore balance. 

Bias in data must be constantly prevented and limited – using adversarial training and debiasing methods – to preserve the development and democratization of a responsible, fair and inclusive AI. Continuously developing – and the associated actions – an ethical AI is a pre-requisite to create a viable, trustworthy, and sustainable solution in the long run.

Companies embracing new managerial techniques and positive leadership, partnerships with startups using new AI technologies – from deep learning to generative AI – all are vessels conducting societies to better address, tackle and cure mental health disorders. This journey can only be viable if undertaken in a holistic, compassionate, sustainable, and ethical approach. The call to action for each of us is clear and cannot be ignored.

Join the movement.

 Alix  

Sources  

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