Family digital mental health interventions: aligning design and systemic practice principles

Purpose Digital mental health interventions designed for individuals are rapidly expanding and demonstrate increasing evidence of effectiveness. Despite the central role families play in supporting individuals experiencing mental health challenges, there is a notable lack of digital interventions designed for use by family groups, alongside limited examination of the theoretical foundations informing their design. This paper aims to address this gap by exploring how systemic psychotherapy principles can inform the development of family-oriented digital mental health interventions. Design/methodology/approach The paper undertakes a conceptual analysis comparing the theories of change underpinning individual psychotherapies with those central to systemic psychotherapies. It examines the implications of these theoretical differences for the design of digital mental health interventions supporting family engagement. Findings The analysis demonstrates that systemic psychotherapies, focusing on relationships and interactional processes rather than individual symptom reduction, cannot be meaningfully translated into digital formats by simply adapting individually oriented interventions. Instead, family-centred digital interventions require bespoke design characteristics. The paper identifies key conceptual considerations and offers design-informed recommendations to guide the development of systemically informed digital platforms. Originality/value This paper contributes novel theoretical insights by explicitly linking systemic psychotherapy models with digital intervention design. It advances understanding of how relational theories of change can inform the creation of digital mental health resources for families, an area that remains underexplored in both digital mental health and systemic psychotherapy literature.