Free Apps for Smartphones and Tablets

Stay Alive App (free)

This app is a pocket suicide prevention resource for the UK, packed full of useful information and tools to help you stay safe in crisis. You can use it if you are having thoughts of suicide or if you are concerned about someone else who may be considering suicide.

DBT Travel Guide (DGT) (free)

This app is for people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) problems who are following a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) programme or want to start with such a programme. DBT provides tools for people with BPD to regulate their emotions and control their impulses. The app provides information about DBT and BPD. The DBT Travel Guide contains more than 200 different skills and mindfulness exercises. The app can provide support in moments of crisis through its crisis section. For the DBT therapist, the app contains a ‘think of’ scheme, full of practical guidelines. Furthermore, the app offers the possibility to write down agreements between client and therapist and to digitally fill in the diary card.

Calm Harm (free)

Calm Harm provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm. The app provides you with four categories of tasks to help you surf the urge. ‘Distract’ helps in learning self-control; ‘Comfort’ helps you care rather than harm; ‘Express yourself’ gets those feelings out in a different way and ‘Release’ provides safe alternatives to self-injury. There is also a ‘Breathe’ category to help calm and get back in control.
You can do the activities for either blocks of five minutes or fifteen minutes with a countdown for each minute. You will be able to track your progress and notice change.

Virtual Hope Box (free)

Patients can use the VHB to store a variety of rich multimedia content that they find personally supportive in times of need. For example, a patient can include family photos, videos and recorded messages from loved ones, inspirational quotes, music they find especially soothing, reminders of previous successes, positive life experiences and future aspirations, and affirmations of their worth in their VHB. A patient can also collaborate with their provider to create coping cards to use in response to personal problem areas they experience. Finally, the VHB provides the patient with positive activity planning, distraction tools, and interactive relaxation exercises including guided imagery, controlled breathing and muscle relaxation.

DBT 911 – for android phones

With this app you will quickly get a random distress tolerance skill to do. In addition, for each module, Mindfulness, Emotional Control, manage relationships and Distress tolerance, are the skills represented and tutorials for these. Contains over 150 different suggestions on skill exercises. There is also the opportunity to create your own crisis list so you will always have it with you.

Headspace: Meditation & Mindfulness (free trial, also lots of clips on YouTube)

The Headspace app teaches you how to breathe, meditate and live mindfully. It’s even been proven to improve focus. There are exercises on everything from managing anxiety and stress relief to breathing, happiness, calm and focus. Plus, they have specially designed sleep meditations to guide you to a place of rest.