phowson83

5 ms·

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   by phowson83 5y ago

   It's great to hear about your experiences with CBT and hear from someone in the ~50% for whom CBT works. We certainly wouldn't bill it as a panacea for all conditions, as we've discussed in the comments section here, and it&#
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   Thanks for bringing those up. We're certainly aware of Quirk and the story, although we haven't as yet talked to the founders in person. Their story is very relevant to this discussion. The points about sustainability of business
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   We've most certainly heard of Woebot. Would be really interesting to hear how you feel about Iona in comparison. Obviously we're much earlier stage than Woebot who have in fact been around since 2017, but the mission is certainly
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   Great! Any comments and feedback on Iona is always much appreciated, let us know how you get on.
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   We're generally more in the smart scripts camp at present. The conversations are graph based, with each node being associated with code that can look at the state of the user and any input. It may be that the input is a set of fixed op
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   I agree, CBT is certainly no panacea, and as mentioned in the post, for those at the moderate to severe end of the spectrum, or for those where CBT is ineffective, it may be the case that medication is the only viable solution. Y Combinator
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   Great to hear about your positive experience with CBT. I think there's a lot of innovation that's possible in this sector. If we look at CBT, a lot of the core concepts and exercises haven't changed all that much (from the pe
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   In fact, privacy is a concern that sometimes even puts employees off using their employer's Employee Assistance Program (EAP), even though that's often in the form of a crisis telephone number which you phone. There are a number o
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   by phowson83 5y ago

   Thanks and some great points here. As you say competition and differentiation are potentially really tricky in this sector. Really interesting to hear about your experience at ginger.io . We're certainly not wedded to the chatbot idea,
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for bringing this point up, and it's a point which is often cited in favour of greater regulation of the sector in general - do such apps in fact stop people seeking help when they may have otherwise done so? Similar criticisms
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience. I think you make a number of valid points - CBT is sometimes incorrectly seen as a panacea for treatment of many disorders, but even face-to-face CBT does obviously not achieve a 100% rec
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your comment Lisa. We do do daily checkins within Iona, but we're always looking for ways to improve the app, and the idea of doing morning and evening checkins to set goals / intentions is definitely an interesting one
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your comment, support and advice! I think that's a really good point that the main challenge here is engagement and adherence, and it's obviously something we're always looking at and trying to improve. In terms of
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Some excellent points. As you say, what is the difference between a book on CBT (as mentioned in the original post "bibliotherapy" is known to be effective in peer-reviewed studies) and a CBT app? And at what point do you draw the
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    That's good feedback and there is a lot of snake-oil in the industry in general, which is why we base our app around evidence-backed practices such as CBT ( as mentioned in the post, there's much evidence that CBT-based apps are b
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Indeed, the general availability of something like an app means we can reach people who otherwise wouldn't have been reached and may not have learned about this kind of self-help skill, and there is a good evidence base that journallin
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your feedback and really glad you liked the onboarding! Indeed it is very high on our priority list to improve the look of the app (and the general UI fit and finish). Up until we got onto YC we had taken no funding for this proj
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    It's an excellent point and why we're very careful with the claims we make. The claim I think you are referring to is "86% of users report feeling better after their first session with Iona Mind" , which is based upon fe
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your comment jph, "you can hack your own mind" is a really great way to frame it!
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for your interest and for checking out the app. We've tried various approaches and I think it's one of the more engaging methods of delivering CBT that we've trialled to date, but we're certainly not married to it
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    by phowson83 5y ago

    Thanks for the heads up on the link! We'll update in the original post, but you can also try https://apps.apple.com/app/iona-anxiety-mood-support/id14913... which seems to be working from our region I would c
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    Launch HN: Iona Mind (YC S21) – App-based cognitive behavioural therapy

    92 points by phowson83 5y ago|58 comments
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    by phowson83 6y ago

    Can I use all NetworkX features and library functions from within memgraph, e.g. can I apply k_components to graph held within memgraph?