What you learn in school as a therapist often lays the foundation for how you choose to support and treat your clients and what approaches you take. However, there are always ways to continue learning and growing as a therapist throughout your years in practice. You might consider a few of the thousands of wellness apps for iOS and Android to support yourself and your clients. Exploring these apps further may help you understand whether they fit your practice’s mission. Here, we’ll cover 10 of the best apps in 2023 that you may want to consider using.
Top 10 Best Apps For Therapists To Use In Practice
Taking care of yourself first can help ensure that you’re emotionally and mentally equipped to assist your clients. Although you may benefit from sharing apps with your clients, there are a few you can try on your own to improve your practice. In turn, the care you provide for your clients may be more well-rounded, comprehensive, and of a higher quality.
These apps are designed to help therapists, professionals, and others focus more on the core tasks of their job instead of spending hours on tasks like billing, taking notes, or creating promotional materials. Below are a few to consider.
- Focusmate
Focusmate is an app that can benefit both therapists and clients. If you struggle to complete tasks for your practice, such as billing, filing paperwork, or organizing notes, Focusmate allows you to connect with another professional over a coworking video call to complete tasks together at the same time. You’re paired with this professional for 50 minutes.
Focusmate uses the idea of social accountability to help professionals stop avoiding essential tasks. All the features of the app, like time tracking and goal setting, allow users to prioritize tasks and check them off within the app. This app may be useful to freelancers, contractors, or private practice therapists who don’t work with other providers and may struggle with not completing as much work as they’d like.
Video calls with accountability partners on Focusmate have no sound, so you’re not distracted by background noise. However, you can use the chat feature on the call to message your work partner. You can also favorite your work partners to come back to them and have more calls with them in the future. Three peer sessions a week are free for all users. To access Focusmate, use their website to sign up.
- Canva
Canva is not a therapy-related app but can be used by mental health professionals to improve the marketing and advertising sides of their practice. If you use social media platforms for your practice, Canva allows you to create quick graphics using various fonts, sticker packages, and pre-made marketing materials.
When supporting clients, it may be challenging to find the time to organize the brand of your practice. Canva may take away some of the time spent attempting to organize color schemes, find royalty-free images, and create appealing visual templates. It does most of the work for you, and you can customize all the details on each template.
Canva is free to sign up for, and you can download it on the App Store, Google Play, Mac OS, and Windows PC.
- Simple Practice
Simple Practice is a healthcare portal for healthcare professionals like therapists. It is a full-service practice management platform offering tools for therapy services, scheduling, telehealth, insurance, billing, and documentation. Clients can log in to Simple Practice and access their documents, payment information, bills, and messages. They can also track their hours through the app if they want to see how much they’re working.
For therapists who struggle to manage aspects of private practice or contract work, Simple Practice may make it easier. This app might be valuable for those working alone or with only a few employees.
To start using Simple Practice, you can access a free trial. In addition, you can access it through the website or download the app on the Google and Apple app stores.
The Best Apps For Therapists To Recommend To Their Clients
Although the above apps may be primarily valuable for therapists, the following apps are suggestions therapists may offer to support their clients. These mental health apps focus on wellness and daily life.
- Forest
If you have a client that struggles with time management, they may benefit from Forest. Forest is an animated time management app made approachable by its easy-to-use interface and bright colors.
To use the app, users are prompted to select the amount of time they’d like to focus on a task. When they start the timer, a virtual tree starts to grow. Every 30 minutes, a tree is born and planted into the user’s virtual forest. In addition, users gain coins they can use to buy new species of trees.
When the timer is on, users cannot leave the app or enter other apps on their phones, causing them to have to focus to get the reward. If they leave the app early or end the timer before it has finished, the tree in their forest will wither. To get rid of the withered tree from the forest, they must spend coins to remove it.
Forest is also a social app, as users can connect with others, follow their favorite forests, and send messages. Those who sign up for the lifetime premium option in the app can also use their in-app coins gained to plant a real tree in a real forest in a movement to save the environment. Forest is free to use, and you can find it on the App Store and Google Play.
- HabitNow
HabitNow is another time management app that may benefit clients looking to drastically change their schedule. In the app, users can set habits categorized by emojis that they want to repeat in a timeframe, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. Each day, the app reminds users to partake in the habits, and they can check them off as completed.
Users can set whether they want the app to send a notification, alarm, or message to remind them to complete a task. The app is focused on daily habits, such as hygiene, exercise, sleep, and other essential wellness activities. However, it is customizable, so clients may use it for various behavioral changes. In addition, individuals can add appointment reminders to keep up with day-to-day life.
HabitNow is free to use but does offer a premium version. Individuals can download it on the Google Play store.
- Medito
Medito is a free meditation app that offers daily five- to 20-minute meditations. The app provides meditation exercises from a few core guides, which users can choose between before beginning. They can also select meditation exercises from categories like the following:
- Breathing Exercises
- Compassion
- Self-Care
- Gratitude
- Meditative Music
- Pain Management
Because all the modules are free for all users, the app is accessible and convenient. Users can also see how many minutes they’ve listened to, their longest streak, and how many guided meditations they’ve heard. You can download Medito on iOS and Android.
- Daylio
Daylio is a mood-tracking and diary app that clients can use as a “diary card” for dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) or to check in with their therapist during each session. The app allows them to track their mood daily while adding activities, habits, or events that occurred that may have impacted their mood.
This app may be beneficial for correlating mood with activities. For example, if someone often reports their mood as “angry” on days when they see their parents, the therapist may be prompted to discuss this correlation in session.
In addition to mood and activity tracking, Daylio allows users to write journal entries alongside their daily moods. They can also customize activities and set goals for themselves, such as drinking a certain amount of water daily. Daylio is free and can be downloaded on the App Store and Google Play.
- Breathe
Breathe is an app dedicated to helping individuals cope with stress, anxiety, and other challenges through a core skill—deep breathing.
When you enter the app, you are prompted to choose between equal breathing, box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, and a breath-holding test. When you select a breathing exercise, the app plays soothing rain sounds and guides you through the breathing technique.
The screen is simple and allows users to watch a colored circle and countdown as they breathe, which may be beneficial during a panic attack or sensory overload. You can download Breathe on the App Store and Google Play for free.
- Sleep Cycle
Sleep Cycle is not free but may offer a free trial to users. This app is considered one of the most effective sleep cycle tracking apps. It analyzes the user’s sleep each night to understand when the best time might be to wake them up in the morning. In addition, it can report the quality of one’s sleep and record snoring and sleep-talking sounds.
After a few nights of recording a user’s sleeping patterns, the app offers statistics to help them keep their sleep schedule on track. It also provides tailored advice for higher-quality sleep and can be used by therapists alongside a treatment plan for sleep disorders. In addition, if a client’s sleep changes over time, the app notifies them about these changes, which could be an area to discuss in therapy.
Sleep Cycle can be downloaded on the App Store and Google Play. It is free to download, but a subscription may come at a cost.
- Online Therapy Apps
Wellness apps may focus on more than self-care alone. For example, many online therapy platforms like BetterHelp can be accessed through a personal device, allowing clients to meet with a provider from home using phone, video, or live chat sessions. Those participating in online therapy may message their provider using the platform’s app or log in to the app when it’s time for a video or voice session.
Therapists can also take advantage of online therapy platforms, as these platforms are often hiring new providers. Because online therapy tends to be more flexible and convenient, it may be a preferable option for busy professionals. Rather than driving to an office, therapists may only need to open an app to provide the same type and level of care to their clients.
Studies also back up the effectiveness of apps for mental wellness and virtual therapy. One study found that chat therapy sessions using cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) were as effective as in-person therapy and reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety in clients.
Takeaway
Apps can be helpful tools for clients and therapists alike. The above apps tackle areas of health like time management, goal setting, sleep, meditation, and mood tracking. However, there are hundreds of other apps that may be worth looking into. In today’s technological era, clients and therapists can utilize online therapy apps to receive or offer support remotely. You may consider downloading one of these apps to get started, whether for personal or professional reasons—or both.
