The Making of Mind Ease: Our CBT Modules
Ever wondered how we create the Mind Ease app? Now you get to find out! In this first article of our new series, we explain how we develop our CBT content.
At Mind Ease, we care deeply about ethics and evidence. That’s why all of our content – from Calm Me exercises to Explore activities – undergoes a thorough evaluation by a team of clinicians.
As part of this, we periodically assess our general strategy. Are we offering our users with what they need the most? Are we focusing on the most relevant topics? Are we providing help in the most effective format? These questions kindle our creativity and spark new ideas about the content we want to create.
Why we made our CBT modules
Early in 2022, we felt that we wanted to provide users with insights that go beyond just managing acute anxiety. We wanted to add techniques that foster other facets of wellbeing, too – to make Mind Ease a well-rounded source of emotional support.
We started by identifying a number of areas where we all frequently struggle. These included low self-esteem, overthinking, bereavement, hopelessness, guilt, shame or inactivity.
For each of these topics, we then identified a set of explanatory models and evidence-based techniques that can help. In addition to our clinical knowledge and experience, we also turned to latest research to gather the most comprehensive and up-to-date information.
That’s how we arrived at the idea of CBT learning modules. In the format of short, interactive exercises, we would explore a variety of mental health problems to help users better understand themselves.
In each module, we wanted to include:
- the possible causes of each problem
- the symptoms that it might bring about
- the vicious cycle that keeps the problem going
- stories illustrating what it’s like to go through it
- and of course, the techniques that can help!
Our CBT modules aim to empower users with information and techniques that they could use on their own – or in collaboration with their clinicians.
Our creative process
Once we agreed on a set structure and design, we set off on our writing assignments. Usually, each clinician picks a CBT topic and researches it in depth. After this deep dive, we draft the module text and then cross-examine it with our colleagues to ensure it is understandable and accurate.
After we finish writing, we proceed to the stage of validation. Online studies are a great tool for this, as we can test our content with a large group of people in a short amount of time. For this, we usually recruit a few hundred participants, who get to explore and evaluate a new Mind Ease exercise for a small financial reward.
We first pre-screen the participants to make sure that the issue at hand is relevant to them and whether it is negatively impacting their lives right now. For example, if they actually struggle with anxiety before testing a new relaxation technique. This helps us verify whether we are validating the content with the right sample.
After testing out our modules, participants give us feedback by answering several questions. For example, we ask if the CBT module was easy to follow, whether they enjoyed it, how much it helped them with the specific issue or whether it improved their general mood that day. We also encourage participants to write any other feedback on what worked for them and what could be improved.
At Mind Ease, we invest a lot of effort into collecting evidence to check our assumptions about what works and what doesn’t.
Insights from our CBT studies
Through this research, we have received a lot of positive feedback on what works well. Our CBT modules are generally rated as enjoyable and effective at helping users feel better. Participants have appreciated our writing style and structure, particularly the comforting and empathetic tone, which is very important to us.
Our example stories also get mentioned as something that helps them feel less alone in their struggles. And a special shout-out always goes to the beautiful illustrations by our in-house designer, Delia!
And of course, we have also learnt a lot about what we could do better. For example, we realized that participants prefer a lot more interactivity, which is why we added more checkboxes, quizzes, dropdowns as well as “extra” content that is optional.
In general, being able to make choices and have control over the progress of the module seems to lead to a more enjoyable user experience.
We have also found out that audio and animated formats of our content would be appreciated over just reading alone. This is what we are currently working on and it’s an exciting new direction for our team! While it requires many adjustments to how our content gets made, it will hopefully soon allow us to fulfill many of these wishes.
Highlights from participant feedback
Finally, let’s finish with some of our favourite quotes from our study participants:
- “I really felt the information I read seemed genuine. It seemed to be written by someone who understands this problem, and sincerely wants to help.”
- “Very straightforward, can’t wait to share with my therapist what I learned!”
- “I feel so much less alone knowing there’s a scientific reason behind my anxiety.”
- “It gave lots of helpful information that I had never heard before. I never really looked into what causes my panic attacks before and now I have a better understanding.”
- “This app was better than the 3 therapists I saw.”
- “I really appreciate y’all. This really made my day and gives me a sense of hope.”
- “It made me feel cared for, like it was coming from a friend.”
Hopefully this article helped elucidate some of the “behind the scenes” of our team! And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to try the Mind Ease app yourself and explore our CBT modules.
