The digital forces of medicalization: the role of apps for mental health

Medicalization can be defined as the phenomenon of transforming normal conditions into pathologies. Medicalization is a strong social force that does not appear to lose its grasp on society. There are several engines of medicalization: medical dominance, Big Pharma, Managed Care, technology and also the consumers and healthism. Mental health is probably the most medicalized dimension of everyday life and mental health apps foster this process. Through a literature review of studies on the topic, we show that apps extend the medical terminology in intimate spheres, and they also increase the likelihood of diagnosing a mental disorder. It can also be demonstrated that some features of neoliberalism are "embodied" in the design of mental health apps. As a consequence, these kinds of apps reproduce neoliberal conceptions of mental health, along with the construction of wellbeing as performativity and productivity.