Therapy Wasn’t Providing Strategies to Manage My Mental Health, So I Tried the Real App

After trying online therapy off and on for the past year, I have started to feel like it might not be the most effective way to support my mental health. I’m a very impatient person who knows what specific issues I want help with. I’ve found it usually takes me at least three sessions before I feel like my therapist has become familiar enough with me and my concerns to offer helpful insights. But that meant spending a couple of weeks and hundreds of dollars to get to that point. I realized I was looking more for on-the-spot tools that would not set me back so much financially.

I’d recently heard about this new mental health app called Real that offered therapist-created tools and what the app calls therapist-led “events,” which are essentially virtual group therapy sessions you can participate in with your camera on or off (and your name revealed or kept private). The Real team is led by licensed mental health providers, including Nina Vasan, MD, a psychiatrist and founder/executive director of Stanford University’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation, and Rachel Hoffman, PhD, author of Dating and Mating in a Techno-Driven World.

The app is basically a vast library of audio talks given by licensed therapists, all of whom have detailed bios on the website. Each talk offers evidence-based guidance and practical techniques you can use to navigate various issues in your day-to-day life. Topics include things like burnout, body image, setting boundaries, or navigating relationships.

Though I was initially skeptical about how much an app could truly affect my mental health, I was excited to try it out, especially considering the expertise of the app’s creators. And given that a year of Real costs less than one online therapy appointment, I felt I didn’t have much to lose.

How I Started Using the App

Downloading the Real app on my iPhone was straightforward—the app is also available for Android. However, the app was so new that I had to wait before I could use it. Even though I was able to download it to my phone, every time I tried to sign up in the app it told me it wasn’t quite ready to accept memberships yet. Finally, in August 2023 it allowed me to sign up for a membership and start accessing content.

After signing up for membership, I was then prompted to fill out a questionnaire, which I was told would take less than five minutes. The first question was about what topics I would like to explore. I chose body image, family dynamics, and dating and breakups, but other options included who I am, parenting, LGBTQ+ identity, substances, friendships, purpose, work-life balance, etc. It then asked me to share which feelings I wanted to explore: joy, sadness, anxiety, fatigue, grief, or anger. I chose anxiety.

The same diversity options were given for sexual orientation.

The next part of the questionnaire came with really helpful images so even if someone isn’t exactly sure how they are feeling, one of the images might resonate with them. For example, with “How would you describe your thoughts?” my options were: at ease (palm tree), a little distracting (leaves blowing in the wind), bothering me (rain cloud), pretty intense (tornado), and scaring me (blue cry face).

I was also asked about my energy levels (solid, alright, not great, really rough, distressed), how I felt (pretty good, just okay, something’s wrong, really struggling, debilitated), and how connected I felt to people who make me feel supported (in sync, kinda, distant, very disconnected, totally isolated).

How I Used the App

After completing the questionnaire, the app immediately curated a personalized library for me with audio talks ranging from two to 23 minutes long. Each talk clearly told me what category it belonged to (body image, dating, etc.). I could peruse them at my convenience and if I wanted to have access to other ones, I could easily use the search button. I also had the option to listen to one two-minute talk and be done, or I could binge and hear 20 in a row.

It only took about a minute of navigating the app before it won me over with its warm, informal tone. Real’s content stood out to me for its relatability. Pre-recorded or live audio talk topics can range from “WTF am I doing with my career?” to “What to do with all this anxiety” and “Communicating like a damn good partner.”

Because it was so easy to binge the short talks, I worried that I would blow through the content available, but it does seem like new content is being added regularly. Still, as a new app, it may not have as much in its library as other more established mental health apps.

Using the Discover Tab

When exploring within the “Discover” tab, I found a section I really liked called “Learn a skill in under 10 minutes,” with content such as “How to prioritize your own needs” or “Four quick steps to interrupt a thought cycle.” There are also “To someone who needs it” talks that feel almost like love letters, with titles including “To someone who doesn’t want to get out of bed today” or “To someone whose depression feels especially heavy today.”

First, I dove into “Four quick steps to interrupt a thought cycle.” For three minutes, it guided me through practical steps. It taught me STOP: “Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed,” and explained what I should do during each step. For example, during the breathing part, it prompted me to put one hand on my heart and one on my belly to better focus on my breath coming into those areas. For observing, it asked me to non-judgmentally observe my heart rate, and notice if I felt jittery or if I was pacing the room. For proceeding, it gave me action items to help me move forward with intention, like texting a friend or deciding to go for a quick walk

Live Events

The app’s live events are like topic-based virtual group therapy sessions led by a licensed therapist. These usually last 40 minutes and you can choose to participate anonymously or with your camera on. Examples of live events that were recommended to me were “Real talk: How stress shapes your relationship” and “Real conversations: ‘I’m the strong friend.’” I found myself uninterested in something so long—I enjoyed the bite-sized three- to five-minute talks that I didn’t have to carve out a ton of space for in my day.

“Help Me Feel Better On My Own”

It took me a few times using the app before I noticed a tool in the upper left corner that took me to an area called “Help me feel better on my own,” which offers support for people who may be thinking of harming themselves or be in more immediate crisis. In addition to talks on “When you are thinking about self harm” and “Feel safe and supported now,” there are links to outside resources like crisis hotlines and nonprofits offering mental health services. While I recognize these resources are helpful, I do wish that this information was displayed more prominently so people who really need it could find it more easily.

Pros and Cons

While my overall experience with Real was positive, there are a few downsides to consider.

Final Thoughts

I found this app much more helpful than I expected. Right away, it felt like reaching out to an old friend and getting quick advice whenever I needed it. It made me feel understood and not judged for my low-level anxiety and it offered me practical tools to integrate into daily life that both helped me understand my triggers and gave me ways to calm and recenter myself when I got anxious.

I had expected Real to ask for more from me in terms of time commitment, but I was pleasantly surprised by all of the helpful information I could gain just by listening to a three-minute talk. I loved how it curated a library for me based on the topics I indicated interest in, and that I could dive in at whatever time of day worked best for me—even if I just had 10 minutes on a bus or a train, I could log on, feel understood, and learn new skills. I really appreciated how actionable and applicable the advice was, and how easy to implement its mental health improvement strategies were. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it could turn my whole day around.

The therapists giving the talks strike a perfect balance of sounding both authoritative and genuinely caring. While I’d never met any of them, they made me feel seen and understood in a way that even people who have known me for years don’t. I do wish there had been a way to let the therapists know how much they helped me, or leave helpful comments from my own experience for other app users, though. Feedback could help the creators make more of the content their users liked best.

The app under-promises and over-delivers, which is always a welcome surprise when subscribing to something new. Within a few days of using this app, I recommended it to many close friends and three actually signed up. Those three were all people who have either been disappointed by online therapy or did not have the extra money to spend on online therapy but knew they could benefit from mental health support.