From MobiHealthNews:
“We let a number of talented people and friends go this week,” CEO Peter Shalek said in an emailed statement. “We did this in order to refocus our efforts on partnering with employers, insurers, and providers to increase access to evidence-based mental health care and to reduce costs. We are positioned financially to pursue this new strategy over the next several years. We’ve built a product known for having the best engagement and outcomes of any mental health-focused digital therapeutic, and we believe that our evolved strategy will allow us to reach and help the most people.”
In an interview, Shalek clarified that Joyable’s direct-to-consumer offering, an online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and coaching program for social anxiety, isn’t going away completely: people currently using it will still be able to use it and new sign-ups will still be supported. But the company won’t put any more resources into developing or marketing the direct-to-consumer offering, and most of the staff involved in marketing and support for that product specifically were let go.
Shalek said that the company had always planned to go in this direction anyway and that, while they reached a lot of people, they recognized that the best way to move the needle meaningfully on social anxiety would be to help more people, which the company could accomplish by targeting populations that don’t need to pay for the service directly (the company charges individuals $23 per week for a 12-week course after a seven-day free trial).
With Joyable’s platform, first users are paired with a coach who has been trained in CBT techniques. Before starting the program, users are invited to speak to the coach for 30 minutes on a phone call about how social anxiety affects them and what they want to get out of the program. After that, the program helps consumers identify and understand their social anxiety triggers. Users must complete activities such as challenging anxious thoughts with evidence and developing alternative thoughts that are more helpful. Each activity takes around 10 minutes to complete.
From there, Joyable teaches users techniques to reduce their anxiety by putting themselves in anxious situations and working on applying the skills they learned. The coach supports the user throughout the program through text and email, and the user can also reach out for help whenever they want. The program is available online, and can also be accessed from smartphones and tablets.
One does wonder how much of Shalek’s statement on “evolved strategy” and the assurance “we always intended to go this direction anyway” masks a certain realisation that many online mental health providers are coming to: that, for all the hype and optimistic rhetoric about empowering “consumers”, ultimately engaging providers is a necessity for these technologies to actually reach the potential users who could benefit most.
A Medical Education 