No Appointment Necessary: Treating Mental Illness Outside the Therapist's Office

The majority of individuals struggling with a mental illness do not receive treatment, and given the extremely high prevalence of mental illness and the many barriers to seeking treatment (e.g., cost, local access, stigma), it is evident that face-to-face therapy cannot get close to meeting the enormous need. Thus, the field of psychotherapy has undergone some amazing transformations over the past 25 years, including the emergence of a class of efficacious interventions designed to reduce symptoms of mental illness that do not involve any face-to-face therapist contact. eHealth interventions that deliver psychological services or training programs via computer or other technologies may help reduce the burden of mental illness by using approaches that have the potential for cost-effective and widespread dissemination. In this article, both the many unresolved questions about how to develop and deliver eHealth interventions and their potential to help respond to the large unmet treatment need are highlighted.