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BOOK REVIEW
GOVERNING DIGITAL MENTAL HEALTH: A BOLD NEW BLUEPRINT
By offering both a governance framework and a call to action, Martí-Noguera reminds us that governing digital mental health is less about machines and more about meaning — a shared responsibility to design futures where innovation and dignity walk hand in hand. Governing Digital Mental Health is now available through Springer in print and eBook formats.
no postgraduate programs or European Commission initiatives currently equip professionals for this oversight function, leaving a vacuum in both academia and continuing education. Second, an economic gap : as primary care shifts toward monitoring people at risk (“pre-patients”) with digital tools, traditional funding models are no longer sustainable. New arrangements will be required across public systems, private insurers, and the wave of new actors entering health care through digital platforms. This publication builds on Martí- Noguera’s wider body of work, including the Manual de Telesalud Mental (Pirámide, 2022), the Libro de Casos Clínicos en Telesalud Menta l (Elsevier, 2023), and Ethics in Digital Mental Health: A Comprehensive Guide to Responsible Practice for Professionals in Training (Ethics Press, 2024). Together, these texts create a continuum of ethics, practice, and governance — from hands-on cases to conceptual models — equipping professionals, policymakers, and innovators
Digital transformation is already reshaping the soul of mental health care: how people seek connection, how clinicians adapt their practice, and how societies decide what counts as care. Yet with opportunity comes urgency: how do we ensure that innovation remains ethical, equitable, and effective? In his new book, Governing Digital Mental Health: Introducing the 5P Model and the Digital Behavioral Health Expert (Springer, 2025), Juan José Martí-Noguera addresses this pivotal question with a framework that bridges technology, policy, and human-centered care. At the heart of the book is the 5P Model — Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, Participatory, and Precision-based — a roadmap for building fair and future-ready behavioral health systems in the age of artificial intelligence. His work also introduces the Digital Behavioral Health Expert (DBHE) , a new professional role designed to embody what is now a mandatory principle of human oversight . As seen in the EU AI Act and legislation such as Illinois HB1806 in the US, human oversight is not optional — it is a legal and ethical requirement. The DBHE ensures that AI- enabled tools never operate without professional supervision, safeguarding dignity and safety. This new role exposes two critical gaps. First, a training gap :
for the challenges ahead. The book is already being recognized as a timely intervention. Professor Anil
Thapliyal, Executive Director of the eMental Health International Collaborative (eMHIC), describes it as “a timely vision for ethical, inclusive governance in digital mental health.”
Juan José Martí-Noguera Author
linkedin.com/in/jjmn juanjomn@pm.me digitalmentalhealth.eu
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