Use cases
See how Mindable can be applied with our user examples.
Before therapy
Essie’s heart beats very fast
Essie is currently in the middle of her traineeship as a teacher. She recently moved to a new place, and many new impressions and tasks have piled up on her in the last few weeks. The other day, on the bus on her way home, she felt really strange for the first time. Her heart suddenly started to race, her chest became tight and her limbs tingled in a funny way.
The day before yesterday, it happened again, and in a packed classroom. Essie is seriously worried, does she perhaps have a bad illness?
Essie goes to see the family doctor, Dr. Ahrens. After examining Essie in detail and finding no physical causes, Dr. Ahrens diagnoses her with “panic attacks”. At first, this is not a bad thing. Every third person suffers a panic attack at least once in their life.
However, to prevent individual panic attacks from turning into a panic disorder and the symptoms from becoming chronic, it is important to do something about them early on. Dr. Ahrens has often seen patients with symptoms similar to Essie’s and knows what to do!
Dr. Ahrens now prescribes apps instead of pills
Dr. Ahrens issues a referral to a psychotherapist. Waiting times for a therapy place are very long in Germany. For this very reason, Dr. Ahrens is aware of the importance of her role as family doctor and first point of contact. Her primary intervention is the decisive step for Essie’s further treatment success, because it often takes several years before patients seek and receive help. That’s why Dr. Ahrens additionally prescribes Mindable, because she takes Essie’s symptoms seriously and doesn’t want to send her home empty-handed, nor does she think sedatives are the right solution. Dr. Ahrens is glad to be able to give Essie an effective behavioral therapy tool with Mindable.
Essie isn’t sure yet if she wants to pursue psychotherapy. She is about to become a civil servant and having proof of psychotherapy in her medical records would now make that impossible. Essie is happy that Mindable can be used completely independently, and if she decides to go to therapy at a later date, it can be easily integrated into the therapy.
Walter on the waiting list of therapist Mr. Thiele
Walter has been suffering from panic attacks for several years and is very afraid of public transport and crowds. It got worse and worse, so that he could hardly leave his apartment. About 4 months ago Walter had his first consultation with his therapist Mr. Thiele. Walter was diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia. Now he is waiting for a therapy place. Unfortunately, this takes an average of 5 months, because psychotherapists in Germany are totally busy. In order to prevent Walter’s symptoms from worsening during the waiting period and so that he can actively do something himself, his therapist Mr. Thiele has prescribed Mindable for him.
Walter now knows his way around much better and understands the mechanisms of action of his anxiety. He now knows what he has to do to get used to his body symptoms and to face anxiety-provoking situations.
During therapy
The therapist Mr. Thiele extends his reach
In his daily work, Mr. Thiele is constantly confronted with the fact that he cannot offer patients anything after an initial consultation and diagnosis. His therapy places are booked up for months. A stupid feeling, since his patients need help so urgently right now. Mr. Thiele is glad to have discovered Mindable, so that he can offer a tool to use the waiting time meaningfully. This also strengthens the self-efficacy of his patients and he is happy to see every time after the waiting time what independent steps they have already made. What makes Mr. Thiele even more enthusiastic as a therapist is that he can continue to use Mindable interactively in therapy without any problems.
In addition, Mr. Thiele now saves a lot of the given therapy time that he used to spend on psychoeducation. Thus, he has more time to concentrate on the essentials during the therapy sessions.
Ina in therapy
Therapist Mr. Thiele currently has Ina in therapy. Ina, like many others before coming to him, has struggled for years with anxiety that has severely limited her daily life. Ina has previously suffered from agoraphobia with panic disorder. In order to prevent panic attacks, she avoided many situations and constantly distracted herself, and her quality of life suffered as a result. Ina has now almost finished her therapy and has made great progress. She has used Mindable from the beginning to the end of her therapy.
First, Ina learned through psychoeducation why it is so important to go through her anxiety instead of avoiding and distracting herself. This helped her a lot to engage in the exercises that followed. She then faced her uncomfortable body sensations through symptom provocations. For this purpose, she did the exercises given by Mindable with animations, such as breathing through a straw. This made her totally dizzy, the symptoms she knew from panic attacks were virtually conjured up. It was hard to endure. But she knew that the only way her body could get used to it was to do it over and over again. To do this, she set a daily appointment in the app.
After practicing for a while, it got a little easier and she felt ready for the next step – confronting anxiety-provoking situations. Again, together with Mr. Thiele, she set exercises in the app that matched her fears and that she just felt she could do. For example, she went shopping alone, something she had not done for years. Meanwhile, she recorded her anxiety curve using the volume control on her cell phone so she could debrief everything with her therapist, Mr. Thiele. Again, she saw how the intensity and duration of her panic in anxiety-provoking situations changed.
At first it got worse, which made Ina quite upset. But Mr. Thiele explained to her that this is the way it is with many sufferers at first, especially if one has strongly avoided it so far. He encouraged her to stay on the ball.
In addition, Mindable asked her again and again in weekly check-ups how she was doing. With the help of progress curves, statistics and histories, she was able to look back and see how her general condition was gradually improving. Of course, there were also days and weeks when things didn’t go well at all, even rather backwards down the hill. But Ina fought her way through. Today she is happy to have gone through her fear with her therapist Mr. Thiele and Mindable, and is proud of how much courage she has shown to face it.
After therapy
Roger without relapse
Roger finished his therapy with therapist Mr. Thiele a year ago. He suffered from agoraphobia without panic disorder. Mr. Thiele had recommended him to use Mindable also after his therapy for relapse prophylaxis, to practice again and again and to put himself into confronting situations. Since then, fear no longer has a chance to determine Roger’s everyday life.
