“Catch It’ – a smartphone app

Clinical psychologists often (although by no means always) use a specific therapeutic strategy called ‘cognitive behaviour therapy’ or CBT in their work. It is a very popular approach to therapy.

We can’t offer therapy (as in one-to-one therapy with a clinician) for everyone, so we decided to produce a simple smartphone app that could give an insight into the basic ideas of CBT. The app allows you to keep a record to your moods, therefore allowing you to reflect on what affects feelings. This, in turn, will help you to control your moods.

We are not suggesting that this app can replace therapy, and we are definitely not suggesting that it can be an alternative to proper, professional help. But we do think that using this app contributes towards understanding the basic ideas of CBT. It might help people gain a little more insight into, or even control over, their emotions.

But essentially, we hope that if you use the app to track your emotions, you will learn more about how clinical psychologists understand these issues.

We do recognise that not everyone has access to a smartphone (in fact, we recognise that sometimes, too much reliance on the use of new technology can make social inequalities worse, not better). But we did want to offer something that could be helpful. If you do have a smartphone, and would like to try the app, please let us know what you think.

And… if you don’t have a smartphone, or if you’d like to have a different format for this material, the next step includes some pdf documents which cover much of the same ground, and a few additional helpful suggestions.

Download the app (free, Apple iOS or Android)