Mental Health and Care in the Age of Digital Pharmaceuticals

Mental Health and Care in the Age of Digital Pharmaceuticals: Hype, Hope, and Tensions

The use of psychotropic drugs in mental health care has dramatically expanded since the mid-twentieth century. These drugs are now both a central part of care and a highly profitable industry. This paper will discuss the development of the digital pharmaceutical in mental health care. It uses the approval of Abilify (aripiprazole) MyCite by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2017 as a case study. In addition to being a psychotropic drug embedded with an ingestible sensor, Abilify MyCite combines multiple ubiquitous technologies including a smartphone application, wearable device, and digital portal. This paper seeks to contextualise the Abilify MyCite alongside broader changes in pharmaceuticals and digital technologies in mental health. In discussing Abilify MyCite as a key example of emerging forms of mental health care, this paper interrogates how discourses of hype, potentials, and limitations are positioned in the development of digital mental health and how care is reshaped in the process.

About the Speaker

Jacinthe Flore is a Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science programme at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the director of the Medical Humanities Research Lab, and the author of The Artefacts of Digital Mental Health (Palgrave, 2023), and A Genealogy of Appetite in the Sexual Sciences (Palgrave, 2020). Jacinthe can be contacted at: jacinthe.flore@unimelb.edu.au

This event is hosted by Durham University's Institute for Medical Humanities, led by Angela Woods.

This event is free to attend.

Zoom details will be circulated closer to the event.