Before and after Corona: From community-based mental health services to online therapy
The mission of the social enterprise before Corona:
Building a movement for accessible, preventative mental health care! Krystian has created a new social business model of community-based mental health services, driven by a revenue-generating combination of paid and pro-bono therapists and practitioners. The aim: to make mental health care available and affordable without stigma. He has removed the slow referral process of normal mental health institutions and offers visits in a matter of days with three levels of fees. Important: Services are free for the unemployed and unable to pay and fees for paying clients are still well below market levels.
By using web counseling, he brings people in, who may be too afraid or unaccustomed to therapy. Krystian’s online intervention tool services as a gateway for tentative users and provides a shared learning platform for practitioners, making mental health care affordable without stigma. By doing so, he maximizes efficiency through technology and allows for international outreach.
Krystian’s flexible, inexpensive system allows for full focus on early intervention and prevention, making mental health care available to those who need it most.
What changed with Corona?
The Coronavirus crisis impacts everyone’s mental state. A lot of people are suffering from various mental stresses that this crisis has brought on. The pandemic can surface new challenges arising from social isolation or strain on relationships due to being in close proximity with people one lives with. Moreover, people who were suffering before the crisis, will have to contend with this additional stress on top of their normal life and emotional stresses. In short, the crisis makes mental health more important for everyone, but even more important for those who needed support in the first place.
The (biggest) challenge: Massive increase in need for mental healthcare
Mental health is especially important right now when all life stresses are raised to an exponential level. But unfortunately, mental health treatment still has significant stigma.
Moreover, the sheer volume of people who are suffering additional mental health issues during this intense time of the global pandemic means that there should be a significantly higher need for mental health services, but decreased ability to meet those demands due to social distancing measures.
The solution: Video call therapy to heal your mind
Mymind is currently offering extensive support around Covid-19 and are delivering online counseling sessions.
Mymind offers ful online counselling and psychotherapy services for all ages and groups. Their solution is user friendly, highly secured (they use their own private video API), and cost effective.
Impact goals: Mymind is looking to share their model with other countries around the globe. They have the technological capability for high scale of provision of online counselling sessions. They currently have the capacity to facilitate 10,000 sessions per second. Imagine how much mental relief this could provide throughout the world!
The personal biggest worry and hope:
Ashoka: How are you dealing with the situation and what is your biggest personal worry?
Krystian: “My biggest worry is that our society and communities are changing with social distancing. We will be more distant from each other more than ever, even in the post COVID-19 crisis.
We will see huge spike of mental health issues, related to isolation, anxiety and depression.”
Ashoka: “What is inspiring you and giving you hope that we can overcome this crisis?”
Krystian: “It is a very difficult situation for everyone, but it is amazing to see so much innovation happening in various sectors every day. People are very creative and adapting quickly to the new reality. This crisis helped most of us to self-educate on the technology side, and we are less afraid to use and experiment with technology. This is truly remarkable.”
