Mental health is often a topic people tend to avoid, especially in more conservative countries such as South Korea. Talking openly about emotional issues is seen as taboo, and people tend to stick with an unhealthy mentality of “getting over it” as a way to cope. However, avoiding the issue by essentially sweeping our feelings under the rug is detrimental to our daily lives. People will continue to sink further into bouts of depression and their lack of motivation. The best solution for most victims of mental health disorders is to seek professional help, but many don’t with the fear that they’ll be stigmatized for the rest of their lives. Therapy, in particular, is essential when it comes to helping victims on their road to recovery, but people avoid help altogether because they don’t want a status of their treatment on their government records. Humart Company has taken this trope into consideration and created an on-the-go application to potentially alleviate this issue.
Trost is an online psychological counseling service that solves the problems of time constraints, travel restrictions, fear of face-to-face consultation, and high prices for those who seek professional counseling. The app targets those experiencing mild depression, loneliness, daily life worries, or even serious mental illnesses. Trost attempts to remove entry-barriers of in-office therapy by providing mobile contents about mental health and an AI chatbot for self-therapy. The app also offers services such as therapy sessions via text messaging and diagnosing patients by reading their overall emotional state based on therapy analysis.
Trost’s AI chatbot is revolutionary because it offers real-time services for users, making it convenient and customized to solely their needs and emotions. The AI functions as a prevention tool for mental illness as it asks about the user’s feelings and activities consistently. Currently, Humart is in the process of developing the bot to its advanced potential, ensuring positive interactions between the app and the user through AI therapy.
The problem is simple: there is a low amount of professional service utilization when it comes to people who suffer from mental health problems. At least 1 out of 4 people in South Korea report experiencing mental illness more than once in their lifetime, excluding people who don’t feel comfortable openly sharing that they have a mental illness. Only 15% of these people reported to have sought professional help. With Trost, Humart hopes to encourage those who feel intimidated by therapy to take initiative in bettering not only their mental health but their overall lives.
▲ HUMART COMPANY CO., LTD
▲ Brand name : trost
▲ CEO : Dong Hyeon Kim
▲ E-mail : trost@hu-mart.com
▲ T : +82- 2-6435-1242
Julie Kim
K-Herald Korea (Los Angeles Times Advertising Supplement)
Published in Apr 23rd 2018
