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The MyPsyDiary app (www.mypsydiary.com) helps you monitor and improve your wellbeing. It records and responds to your thoughts and emotions and contains psychological strategies to help you feel better.
Australian clinical psychologist Dr Amanda Commons Treloar developed the app to allow people to have a “pocket psychologist”. She’s really passionate about everybody having access to mental health support.
In an interview with Mobile App Spotlight, Commons Treloar talks about why she created the app.
“Last year I had a client whose personal journal was read by their family when it was discovered during moving house, and then another client who had a panic attack rang me during my lunch break and I had to talk them through it, but the client said to me, ‘I know this stuff so why can’t I do it now’?”
This prompted Commons Treloar to develop the MyPsyDiary app over a nine-month period. The app can be locked and has no data sharing capability, making it incredibly secure. It’s designed with security as a primary focus.
Fantastic range of features
Features include: mood monitor, sleep and lifestyle choice tracking, relaxation training (including MP3 recordings), goal setting, and positive thinking coach.
The app can be easily used in conjunction with a mental health professional to aid treatment monitoring and goals. It also contains many well-supported psychological strategies to help people feel good.
There’s also a unique function included within the app where the user stores a list of trusted contacts (such as a crisis phone counselling service or a mental health professional). The app will prompt you to contact these supports if it detects that your mood or emotional experience is depressed or anxious, and therefore assist with managing periods of risk more effectively.
In June 2016, MyPsyDiary received an award from the best mobile app (BMA) awards in the US for the best social and lifestyle app, and it has been submitted for consideration as an Australian entrant in the 2016 World Summit awards, World Health Organisation. It has also recently featured in Australian newspapers and ABC radio, and was involved in sponsoring suicide support in Australia.
MyPsyDiary has no in-app purchases or downloaded advertising and it’s cheap to buy, which makes it a great, accessible tool for a range of consumers.
Reviewed by Janet Peters, registered psychologist and writer