erinfrey

Thanks! It's actually on the more affordable end for CBT therapy in the Bay Area. We see a range of $130-300+.

This is a really thoughtful response and I'm really glad you brought up this point.

At Kip, we truly believe that therapy is for everyone. Therapy is a scientifically proven process that improves how your mind works. There are many ways to change how you think, feel, and act but therapy is usually the quickest, most effective, safest route to do it. It's really helpful for people who are dealing with moderate or episodic anxiety or depression. But it’s also a critical tool for someone who is dealing with a severe or chronic conditions like treatment resistant depression. We see both kinds of clients at Kip.

One of our goals at Kip is to erode stigma around mental health issues big and small. According to the NIMH, it takes the average person suffering a mental illness over 10 years to seek help. Our hope is that by making therapy more approachable, more people will seek treatment sooner. And more people getting treatment and more awareness means we can develop better treatments in the future.

Our therapists use standard surveys like the DASS-21, PHQ-9, GAD-7, etc. to track treatment progress over time. Standard measures like these are really good at measuring changes in an individual's symptoms over time.

A therapist usually assigns these surveys every week or every other week. The surveys have questions such as, "Rate how much the statement applied to you over the past week: I found it hard to wind down." or "I felt I wasn't worth much as a person.' And then your answers contribute to a 'score' for whatever the survey is measuring (e.g. level of anxiety). You can google any of the form names to see the full question list–the ones we use are open source.

As an example, DASS-21 measures stress, anxiety, and depression levels in a individual at a scale of 0-34. Let's say that in the beginning of treatment, a client measures at 18-16-30 (18 depression, 16 anxiety, 30 stress). Overtime, you'd want to see a reduction in those scores.

Research shows that routinely tracking outcomes with measures like these leads to better outcomes but most therapists don't do it! This is one thing we're trying to change at Kip.

Here are some good articles on why using standard measures to track outcomes makes care more effective:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4910387/

https://www.thekennedyforum.org/news/measurement-based-care-...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/what-yo... ( linked to it in an earlier response)

Not right now. There used to be and it's something we're thinking of adding back in the future.

We are always looking for more great therapists to join Kip and they can do so on the website.

Whoops that is an old page, before she became our CCO. Good catch – thank you!

Yep–we have a really high bar for therapists. We also look at outcomes data (de-identified, in aggregate) and can use that to evaluate therapist performance over time.

There was a really cool article in the Atlantic a couple weeks about why outcomes data is so crucial to making therapy more effective. It mentions an study where they used outcomes data to see which therapists treated clients more effectively: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/what-yo...

Thanks! I'm one of the Kip founders and I go to therapy. It's been critical for me and I hear that from a lot of founders who work with us, too. Therapy helps me be mentally stronger so I can manage the stress and ups and downs that come with startups. I've also seen a huge jump in my ability to think strategically and clearly. My productivity is so much higher, too.

Good question. Everything you share with your therapist in the app is private and visible to the two of you. We host your data on HIPAA-compliant servers (Aptible). We care a lot about this and should probably add a bit more on the website. Good call!

+1 this would make a kickass Don DeLillo book.

Irony = placeholder text at http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Thanks! Glad you got something from reading it.

We just started writing posts that dive into benefits of a specific habit, so it's great to hear positive feedback.

Even at flexible workplaces, it's hard to find a place to nap unless there is a free room/couch somewhere. I tried taking a nap on a bench at Yerba Buena Gardens once but was kicked off the bench by the Park Guardians. :(

When I can't fit in a nap, a brisk walk gives me a good energy boost or even switching to standing at my desk... in fact, I'm about to switch to standing now. Have you tried that?

We just published habit data & insights from successful meditators on Lift, our goal-tracking app (http://lift.do/). The research includes answers to your questions (and really cool graphs).

http://bit.ly/meditationhabits - time of day, position, styles & session length

http://bit.ly/marchmeditationtips - likelihood of continuing meditation, frequency, session length, apps

What we learned:

There doesn't seem to be a correlation between time of day & whether you see benefits. 48% of people on Lift meditate upon waking or in the morning. 2/3 of all survey respondents started feeling benefits within a week regardless of when they meditated.

45% sit on the floor, 30% a chair, one person said they meditate while swimming.

Mediation gets easier after 11 days of daily practice. 90% of people with an 11 day streak went on to have a 12 day streak & that trend continued for 60 days (we didn't look after that). To compare, it takes 14 days to see that trend in the Eat Breakfast habit.

Most people started with 3-5 minutes per session. Average session length we see on Lift is 16.8 minutes.

62% of people who meditated more than 3 days a week used an app compared to 50% of people who meditated 3 days a week or less.

Data comes from Lift data + surveys to Lifters in the Meditate habit. We're running a Meditation Challenge this month & we're learning a lot about this habit a lot of people say is their most important one. You can ping me at @liftapp with more questions.