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??

• Camillus, J. C. (2008) Strategy as a wicked problem. Harvard Business Review, 86, 98-101. Available at: https://hbr.org/2008/05/strategy-as-a-wicked-problem.????
• Courtois J.P, Badshah A. (2021) “Activating Purpose Mindsets with Akthar Badshah”. Positive Leadership Podcast. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6MhgrEPMTVvpsb3p66uPs4?si=6siBHdfsTjWuEqTISqCj7w. (Accessed: October 31, 2022).?
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