Policy Press
UberTherapy is the essential guide to the rise of digital therapy for anyone working in, researching or using mental health services. Arguing for the irreplaceable value of human therapists, this book offers a roadmap to preserve real therapy in an increasingly digital world.

UberTherapy is the essential guide to the rise of digital therapy for anyone working in, researching or using mental health services. This timely book explores the emerging uberization of therapy through algorithmic control, datafication of despair and attrition by design. Analyzing the deployment of e-commerce business models the book makes a compelling case that the rise of 'therapeutic Tinder' offers new consumers of therapy a way to avoid the deep and uncomfortable work of therapy. UberTherapy offers a defence for the irreplaceable value of human therapists and a roadmap for preserving the legacies of real therapy in the digital world.

"An important and engaging contribution that critically evaluates the commercialisation of mental health and how emotional management and self-help are generating new problems in our personal and working lives." Miguel MartĂ­nez Lucio, The University of Manchester

Elizabeth Cotton is Associate Professor of Responsible Business at the University of Leicester and the founder of Surviving Work which carries out socially engaged research about mental health and its relationship to work. She has worked extensively with health teams and trade unions and has worked as a psychotherapist in the NHS. Elizabeth runs The Digital Therapy Project, a group of UK and US researchers and practitioners interested in understanding future therapies from both sides of the therapeutic relationship.

Prologue

1. Angerland

2. UberTherapy

3. Psychic Pilates

4. Do You Have to Marry a Rich Man to be a Therapist?

5. Therapeutic Tinder

6. RealTherapy™