Digital futures in mind: Why lived experience collaboration must guide digital mental health technologies

Digital mental health technologies and services are here. More are coming. Such technologies and services present both risks and opportunities. At their best, they may enhance the most humane, communal and caring parts of our social systems and communities. At their worst, they may reinforce reductionist approaches to distress and crisis, increase surveillance and control, as well as extracting data and wealth from people seeking care. In this paper, we argue that lived experience-led governance and collaborative development of these technologies and services will enhance the best opportunities and mitigate against the biggest risks. This paper provides a commentary emerging from work by authors with lived experience, and those without, that explored accountability in digital mental health technologies and services. The commentary offers guidance to anyone interested in supporting lived experience-led, and collaborative governance of, digital mental health technologies. This guidance, drawing on interdisciplinary and lived experience-led research and grey literature, assists readers in understanding why collaboration should take place, when, where and with whom, on what issues this could start, and how collaborators should approach this.