When people hear the words digital psychiatry, many still think first of a video consultation with a psychiatrist. This is understandable, because telepsychiatry is the oldest and most established part of the field. But today Digital Mental Health encompasses much more: video consultations, digital treatment programmes, apps, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, sensors, wearables and new ways of monitoring a course of treatment between consultations.
The terminology has changed along with the technology. What we once called telepsychiatry later became part of e-Mental Health, and today Digital Mental Health is used as a broader term. This development can also be seen in my own work: in 2016, I co-edited the book e-Mental Health with Donald M. Hilty, followed in 2025 by Digital Mental Health: The Future Is Now. But the names matter less than the clinical question: What should technology help us achieve?
A simple example illustrates the difference. A person with anxiety may use an app with relaxation exercises and benefit from it. But that does not automatically make the app a treatment. A digital treatment programme, by contrast, may be based on an evidence-based method such as cognitive behavioural therapy, have a clear treatment goal and have been evaluated in clinical studies. Similarly, AI can help a patient prepare questions before a consultation or help a clinician make sense of large amounts of information. The value lies not in the tool being new, but in its solving a real problem.
It is therefore a misunderstanding to see digital psychiatry as an aim to make as much as possible digital. Sometimes video is the best solution; at other times, an in-person appointment is better. Some people may benefit from a digital treatment programme between consultations, while others need close personal contact. Technology can expand the possibilities, but on its own it cannot understand life history, culture, relationships, hopes, fears and meaning.
My basic principle is simple: Technology should not be the goal. It should be a tool. If it makes the right treatment more accessible, more continuous or better adapted to the individual, it has value. Otherwise, we risk using technology merely for its own sake.