The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily lives and restricted access to traditional psychological interventions. Hence there is an immediate and growing demand for accessible and scalable mental health solutions. Emotion-focused training for self-compassion and self-protection was developed and distributed using mobile phone technologies, and its effectiveness was tested. The available research sample consisted of 97 participants with a mean age of 26.06 years and a standard deviation of 10.53. Participants using the mobile app underwent a 14-day program aimed at reducing self-criticism while increasing self-compassion and self-protection. Pre- and post-measurements were collected. The results showed a statistically significant medium effect on self-compassion, self-criticism, and self-protection performance and a significant small effect on self-protection distress. The finding that a 14-day mobile app was able to foster well-being in the form of self-compassion, self-protection, and self-criticism is promising. It indicates the potential for individuals to obtain help through the use of remote tools such as MHapps for a fraction of the usual cost, at their own pace, and without other restrictions.

Although mobile applications are increasingly being used as a viable option for improving individuals' psychological health, there is a lack of research in this area. This qualitative study analysed user experiences of mobile mental health applications (MHapps) among the English-speaking general population of 462 participants using the critical incident technique. The authors employed an online questionnaire method to gather responses. The analysis yielded three main domains: type of MHapp, impact on life, and recommendations. Participants use MHapps to calm down, do tasks, track, and connect with others or chat-bots for specific disorders. This study outlines the specific cognitive, emotional, and behavioural changes in participants' lives resulting from the mobile interventions. The results confirm and broaden the existing theoretical knowledge and recommendations for MHapps development in terms of usability, accessibility, and content. Further confirmatory studies are needed to validate the results for specialized MHapps using different analysis and data gathering techniques.

IntroductionBeing self-compassionate is considered a beneficial emotion regulation strategy. Therefore, the acquisition of emotional skills can raise self-compassion levels and consequently reduce self-criticism.MethodsHence, the goal of the current study was to develop a mobile app based on the empirically proven group version of Emotion-Focused Training for Emotional Coaching (EFT-EC) and test its effectiveness in reducing self-criticism and raising self-compassion and self-protection. The sample consisted of 85 participants, of whom 22.4% were men and 77.6% were women. The mean age was 32.53 (SD = 14.51), ranging from 18 to 74 years. The participants filled out the following scales immediately before and after using the fourteen-day mobile app: The Forms of Self-Criticizing/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS), The Sussex-Oxford Compassion for the Self Scale (SOCS-S), and The Short-form Version of The Scale for interpersonal behaviour (s-SIB).ResultsUse of the 14-day EFT-EC mobile app significantly improved self-compassion and self-reassurance and significantly reduced self-criticism compared to pre- and post-measurements.DiscussionThe results are promising as self-criticism is a transdiagnostic phenomenon observed in various kinds of psychopathology and reducing it may prevent the emergence of psychopathologies. Moreover, the mobile app intervention can easily be accessed by a wide range of users, without requiring the services of a mental health professional, and thereby reduces the potential risk of shame or stigmatization.