Analysis of online mental health counselling conversations

Abstract

Social media websites like Twitter and Reddit have gradually emerged as platforms for seek- ing help when it comes to a spectrum of mental disorders from depression, ADHD and bipolar disorder to drug addiction. This form of mental health counselling is quite different from the counselling received in a therapist-patient setting which makes it essential that we study the mental health conversations taking place in the online setting to analyse how they differ from the ones in a medical setting, and whether using a particular form of counselling is a better choice in certain specific situations. We use data from Reddit mental health subreddits for social media counselling and the HOPE dataset for the comparison to psychotherapy.