Demi Lovato, a champion of mental health awareness, continues to prove that she is committed to reducing the stigma. In a conversation with Good Morning America on Thursday, the singer said she’ll be offering free mental health counseling to her fans at her upcoming Tell Me You Love Me tour.
“It’s basically like a therapy session before the concerts and we have speakers from all over and we’re also helping out with different charities from around the country,” Lovato said.
The sessions (free if you have a concert ticket) are run through the CAST Centers: A California-based mental health and wellness treatment program that Lovato co-owns. CAST Founder and CEO Mike Bayer, who also appeared in the segment, suggests signing up online as tickets may sell out quickly. Fans will also have the opportunity to donate to a related charity that Lovato will announce mid-performance.
This isn’t the first time Lovato has provided fans this kind of resource. In her Future Now tour with Nick Jonas in 2016, free seminars were offered to fans in a private, phone-free space where people discussed topics ranging from broad mental health issues to day-to-day anxiety.
“I want to do this because, one it was such an incredible experience the last time we did this on tour,” Lovato said. “I’ve actually met people that go to CAST because they went to CAST on tours and realized they needed to get sober or they needed to better themselves in some other way and it’s changed lives and I want to be able to do that again.”
Lovato sat down with Thrive Global founder and CEO Arianna Huffington for the The Thrive Global Podcast in October and spoke about what first inspired her to be a vocal advocate for mental health: “When I was in treatment, going through rehab when I was 18, my manager came to me and said, ‘We can either talk about the reasons why you’re in here and hopefully help somebody, or not talk about them at all. It’s totally up to you.’”
She told Huffington that realizing she could be a role model for people was a big part of it. “It’s important that people have somebody to look up to, especially younger people that are going through things that they can’t really explain or they don’t feel like anyone understands. I want be that for them.”
Listen to the full conversation here.