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Making Therapy More Efficient with Maria Szandrach of Mentalyc · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Our folks, welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: guest today, Maria Shondrach. Maria, welcome.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Appreciate that. Maria is a co-founder and CEO of Mentally Seed,
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  Speaker 1: an AI-powered platform that helps therapists automate clinical documentation and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: streamline administrative tasks. She created Mentally Seed to make therapy
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: more efficient and effective.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It's pronounced mentalic.
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  Speaker 1: Mentalic. Mentalic. Thank you for that. Her mission is deeply personal.
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  Speaker 1: As a teenager, she struggled with an eating disorder and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: worked with multiple therapists before recovering. an experience that inspired
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: her lifelong commitment to improving mental health care. Today, she
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  Speaker 1: works closely with clinicians, mental health organizations, and technology leaders
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  Speaker 1: to explore how AI and emerging technologies can enhance clinical
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  Speaker 1: practice while preserving the therapeutic relationship. All right. So, Maria,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: how does all this start for you?
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  Speaker 2: So, as you already, I guess, mentioned, I had an
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: eating disorder as a teenager. So that's like half of
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: my lifetime ago. And I basically didn't know how to,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: let's say, solve this problem, how to approach it. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: maybe more importantly, my parents didn't know. So they were
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: like learning about what is CBT, what is psychodynamic, what
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  Speaker 2: different clinicians are out there. And then I basically like
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: went through all of those different modalities and approaches and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And I guess that's how my passion for the topic started.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: All right, hang on one second. So you, at what
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: age did you realize or discover this eating disorder?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: 15.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: At 15. Okay. And eating disorders are notoriously difficult to
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: treat and to work through. Was this something that you...
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: how did you manage this as a young kid? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: is this something you hid from your parents? Did you
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  Speaker 1: have siblings?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I have a sister. I initially, I guess, tried
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to hide it, but it didn't last long. So then I, like,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: it basically kind of, like, moved out of my control,
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  Speaker 2: so I didn't know even what to do. So I
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  Speaker 2: was discussing with my parents that I, like, don't know
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: how to handle it. And, uh, it started from actually
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: like a very innocent, um, like play with my like
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: girlfriends that like some of them were dieting. And then
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I felt like, oh, maybe I could too. I actually
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: didn't need to, because I was not overweight, but it
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  Speaker 2: was more of this, like, oh, everyone does it. So, um,
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  Speaker 2: that's how, how I, like I lost a couple of
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: kilos and then I basically got yo-yo and then I
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  Speaker 2: somehow started like, um, obsessing about food, constantly being hungry.
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  Speaker 2: And I didn't know what to do about this. And
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  Speaker 2: my parents also didn't have any idea because they are
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: also not like dieticians or psychologists. So they also didn't
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  Speaker 2: experience it like from anyone like around them, their friends, family,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: or at least no one talked about it. So for them,
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  Speaker 2: it was like a whole new problem. And that's kind
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: of how this journey started. So they were like buying books, reading,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: asking everyone questions. They're also a bit cautious with asking
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: people initially because there is a bit of stigma, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: around it.
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  Speaker 1: Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Poland.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so you grew up in Poland?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I did.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, where are you now?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I'm currently actually also in Poland. I'm visiting my parents,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: but I don't live there anymore.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Where do you live currently?
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  Speaker 2: I move a lot around. So the last couple of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: months I lived in Asia, then I was before in California.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And Metallic is actually officially registered in California. So that's
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: where our headquarters are. But the team is fully remote.
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  Speaker 2: So I also kind of like move around and work
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: with different people. But yes, back then in Poland, it
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  Speaker 2: was a very, I would say maybe like a taboo topic.
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  Speaker 2: So my mom especially took it a little bit personally,
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  Speaker 2: I guess, like that it's like her failure as a
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  Speaker 2: parent for this to happen. So... It was like a
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: whole process of also like her facing it and she
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: also went to therapy at some point. So we've all
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: definitely learned a lot about mental health and all got
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  Speaker 2: like more curious basically. We like didn't have any pre-existing
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  Speaker 2: knowledge or notion. And then as I was growing up,
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  Speaker 2: I was also discussing with other people like what are
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: their experiences. I met some people with let's say other
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: diagnosis So then I was like comparing, trying to understand
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  Speaker 2: how it works for them and what is their experience.
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  Speaker 2: And then as the life like moved by and I studied,
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  Speaker 2: I worked in different places and I like, I basically
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: didn't have any symptoms anymore. So I sort of like
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  Speaker 2: a bit forgot about the topic. And then COVID started
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  Speaker 2: and I noticed that everyone is trying to go to therapy.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to get there. I don't want to get
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: there yet, though. Because I'm really curious in your process,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: first of all, it sounds like you had some really
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: supportive parents.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I would say so, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, despite you living in this environment where there
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was a stigma about therapy, and obviously that's very prevalent,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: but what kind of therapy did you get into initially?
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  Speaker 2: So the very first actually thing my mom did was
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  Speaker 2: she brought me to a priest. So that was, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: the level of, let's say, like awareness of the domain
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  Speaker 2: that she started with. And it was not even like
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: in a sense that she wanted him to somehow like
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  Speaker 2: remove the demons or something. It was rather that this
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  Speaker 2: person was leading like a youth sort of like, I
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: don't know how to call it, like a school for
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: young priests. So he was, um, like having this, this
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  Speaker 2: kind of background of like shaping young people, um, their
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: character and so on. So that was, I think her
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: idea that she somehow met this person before. And she
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  Speaker 2: thought he's like, um, I think he actually studied psychology
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: as well. So, um, that was like, she thought it
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  Speaker 2: would be like a person that, that could like have
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: some talks with me and maybe help me understand it better. Um,
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  Speaker 2: And then after maybe three or four meetings, I went
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  Speaker 2: to a CBT therapist that was not actually having much
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: experience with eating disorders. So again, not very fortunate. It
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  Speaker 2: was also a young clinician, mostly seen, I guess, most
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  Speaker 2: common cases, so like anxiety and depression, and tried to
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  Speaker 2: somehow fit the, I guess, interventions that were not exactly working. Um,
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  Speaker 2: then I was going, I actually don't even remember the
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: order of them anymore because that was like more than
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: 15 years ago, but, uh, there was definitely a psychodynamic therapist.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: There was humanistic existential. Um, there were two psychiatrists, even
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  Speaker 2: I was for a couple of months on antidepressants that
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  Speaker 2: also didn't help me. Um, because I didn't have actually
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: any like depressive symptoms whatsoever. there was even a therapist
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: that was living very far away from my home. So
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  Speaker 2: I had to go there once a month, travel with
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: a train for three hours. And this was one that
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  Speaker 2: was specialized in eating disorders. So I wrote a book
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  Speaker 2: about this and was seeing all eating disorders.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: And she had a program that was supposed to last
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  Speaker 2: just 10 sessions. And that's it. You're done. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And you're saying you're cured. Did you do that?
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  Speaker 2: I did that. And I initially thought actually, which also
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  Speaker 2: exposed like to be another interesting like aspect of mental health,
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  Speaker 2: that I thought at the 10th session that I am
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  Speaker 2: actually better. But then the remission, it didn't take long
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  Speaker 2: for it to happen, maybe like a couple of months,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: maybe three or four months. But this clinician never learned
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: about it. So this also stuck with me that clinicians
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  Speaker 2: don't have actually this feedback loop, right? Because this clinician
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  Speaker 2: probably thought like, okay, I wrote a book, my 10
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  Speaker 2: therapies program works. There's just another proof of it. And
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  Speaker 2: at some point I have went, actually, my last therapist
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  Speaker 2: was also, I'm not sure, I think it was humanistic existential.
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  Speaker 2: But it's actually a bit hard to say because this
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  Speaker 2: guy was like a very old professor of psychology, I think.
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  Speaker 2: And he was already retired and had a cancer. So
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: he was going for chemo. And my mom sort of
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: like begged him to just like see me a couple
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: of times. And it was also very interesting, very different
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: experience compared to the younger ones or just writing books, clinicians.
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  Speaker 2: Because this guy had like nothing to like prove or
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: gain anymore. So, um, this, this therapy was very different.
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  Speaker 2: Like there were no somehow like very obvious, like, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, exercises of, or like interventions by the book,
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  Speaker 2: but just really like sort of like presence and sort
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  Speaker 2: of like, I believe in you, you will. like you'll
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  Speaker 2: be okay.
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  Speaker 3: And how was that for you um i thought i
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  Speaker 3: mean initially because i have this very analytical sort of
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  Speaker 3: um brain so i i always like overanalyze things i
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  Speaker 3: guess that's my like maybe main um defense mechanism so
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  Speaker 3: initially I thought like oh this this guy is like
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  Speaker 3: not doing anything even like what type of therapy is this.
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  Speaker 2: But but I think actually that it did have definitely
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  Speaker 2: some impact on my recovery it's for me very hard
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  Speaker 2: to say that's also one of the things that that
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  Speaker 2: inspire me nowadays of mentalic that I cannot even attribute
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  Speaker 2: which parts of my recovery were caused by whom and
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: by what, because it's also not just the therapist, but
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: also other experiences and people. But I think back then
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  Speaker 2: when I've seen this person, I already didn't have very
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: intense symptoms, only on and off. relapses and after seeing
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  Speaker 2: him they like completely went away like some couple of
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  Speaker 2: weeks after so I think he did something but on
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  Speaker 2: the other hand you could argue that it was like
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: already less and less common so I.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Was waiting for you to say finally you got into
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: some inpatient unit and spent like two months there but
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  Speaker 1: you didn't do any of that.
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  Speaker 2: No at some point my mom actually wanted me to
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  Speaker 2: do that Um, but I was like very against this.
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  Speaker 2: I was always worried that it will like disrupt my,
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  Speaker 2: my school and my routines and, and it would cause trouble,
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  Speaker 2: like put me behind. Maybe I would need to repeat
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: some classes or something. So I was very scared of that.
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  Speaker 2: And I was like trying to do everything, like stick
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  Speaker 2: to all of the treatment regimes, just to not have
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  Speaker 2: to do that.
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  Speaker 1: So, so at some point you quote unquote, got.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Better yeah i already like since many years like i
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: guess over 10 years don't have any any like um
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  Speaker 2: like richly any like i don't know thoughts about like
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: i'm eating too much or something like this it's just
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: like very natural to me like i i think like
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: back then if someone told me that this is possible
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: i would not even believe right like what is just
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: such not a problem for me basically i can like
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: eat anything like go with people to restaurants, eat, I
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: don't know, fats, sugar, everything.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, so you saw a succession of therapists.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And actually eating disorders. As far as I know, they
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: don't have very high success rates. So I, I believe
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I was quite lucky. Um, my parents definitely put a
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: lot of effort. Like we did really like try so
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: many things and read so much.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and again, I don't know if it's like the,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: how much the therapy did versus like, I also moved
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: out of home towards the end of this process. I
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: went to study away, right. Different environment. You could argue
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: maybe that the home environment, maybe like my mom controlling
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: me or something was impacting the general control issues.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Um, was that a variable in this.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Was, I believe so. Yeah. Because I had a very
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: busy childhood, like a lot of classes, um, My mom
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: always was putting a high bar for me. And then
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I think I picked it up a bit from her.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: So I actually like to do a lot of things
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and challenge myself. So I think it definitely had something
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to do with it. I also then later moved abroad,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: studied in other countries. So there was a lot of
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: different things. I met a lot of new people and
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: got more independent. But I believe that therapists had definitely
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: a part in this journey.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: So at what point, Maria, did you go to school,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you go to college, what are you studying when you
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: go to university?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I was studying business and finance.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. At what point were you like, I want to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: create a program that's going to help therapists, that's going
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to help people?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So that was exactly around COVID times. And I already
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: actually had my first business already started in high school.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So actually still at the time when I had bulimia.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And that one was in the insurance space. So I
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: was basically like, since, since a kid, I was very
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: like fascinated by businesses and like very entrepreneurial. I was
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: like trading violin, selling hamsters when I was 10.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So trading violins and selling hamsters. I love it.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So I was, I was very, very basically like passionate
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: about turning things that I like into actually like businesses.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I really liked to have this, this sort of like,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: that I can change things and, and solve some problems
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: with some means that I create out of nothing. So
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I had this insurance business that taught me that, that
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: is actually very important for me to, to work on
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: the problem that is like very important to me because
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: insurance wasn't. Um, and, uh, later actually during COVID, I
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: was working in a different startup. Uh, I was employed
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: in Berlin and, um, And during COVID, I was exactly like,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I went back kind of to this journey of like
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: some years back with bulimia. And I was noticing that
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: exactly everyone is looking for therapy and it's like so
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: confusing for everyone again. And I was like, oh, I've
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: experienced this before. And now like 10 years later, it's
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: still the same problem and in a different country. So
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: then I started thinking more in this direction of like, oh,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: maybe this is another like thing that I am really into.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: that I could change something for the better in that space.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And then I was like, not very sure if this
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: is a good idea, but some friends and people around
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: me were telling me like, oh, you know so much
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: about this mental health and you like it so much.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Why not actually do something in this space? And I
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: was also skeptical because mental health is like, it's a
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: tricky market. Like therapists usually don't have like big budgets.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The market is also rather small. It's generally from the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: pure money perspective. Generally, healthcare is a bit tricky. But
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: therapists are kind of a harder market even than clinicians
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: who have higher budgets. Not clinicians, physicians. So from the
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: business perspective, it was tricky. And I wasn't sure if
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: there is actually something I can do because I'm not
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a therapist. So I had a bit of this imposter syndrome. And, um,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: but then I decided to give it a go and
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I started talking to a lot of therapists and also, what.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Was the idea? What was the, the, the initial idea
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: for you that you wanted to pursue?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: The first thing I tried to do, and they're actually
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: a different, um, like it was a different business. It
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: did like different, um, project with different people that mentally
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: it was that I tried to make care a bit
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: more accessible. So it was more about originally like e-learning programs,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: like self-help tools, because back then people were like really
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: trying to get a spot at the therapist and there
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: was a shortage during pandemic. But then I figured that
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: there are so many of those self-help apps and it's
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: actually like a very muddy territory because on one hand
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: you have the medical devices, so like official digital therapeutics.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And then you have all of those self-help apps like
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Headspace or Calm. Um, and then the digital therapeutics are
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: trying to get reimbursed and the others are like not
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: really a part of healthcare and, and it's like, and
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of them, they're like over a
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: thousand apps. So, so I was not somehow seeing that
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: much of a green light. And then I met my
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: current co-founder in like, um, uh, startup acceleration, uh, incubation program.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: And he has a machine learning and like, um, data
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: science background. and worked with sensitive data at scale. And
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: then he was telling me that, oh, maybe how about
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: we analyze therapy to somehow find out how to make
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: it better. And I thought that this is a very
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: compelling idea for me personally, because I didn't know which therapist,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: how much help, and sometimes I maybe stayed too long
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: with one and should have switched to another. I didn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: know what are the markers. Because usually therapists say, like,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: trust the process. And then you have no idea. And
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: it's expensive for parents. So I thought it was interesting.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: But then I didn't know, like, is there a buyer
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: for something like this? Like, who wants to know if
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: the therapy works? Because the clients usually want to just
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: get better. And they don't know how to evaluate it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: They don't want analytics. They just want the suffering to
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: be gone. But clinicians also have other problems, like they
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: want to, I don't know, get paid from insurance, submit
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: their notes on time. Just more kind of like down
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to earth problems than understanding if therapy works. But then
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: we were talking to all of those. payers and therapists,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: like initially in Europe, in Germany, but then also like
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: we started talking more to the American clinicians. We realized
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that the market is a bit different. There is more
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: like private practice prevalence, whereas in Europe, it's more about
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: just public health care. They're just having all this procurement top-down,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: so clinicians don't really decide so much about what they
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: use as their tools. So we, through this process, basically
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: realized that documentation is such a huge pain. And this
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: was five years ago now, so before even the chat
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: GPT boom happened. And so the only way back then to, to,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to write notes was to basically type them in, write
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: them on paper. Sometimes maybe they're drop down so you
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: can pick some interventions from the list. And we've noticed
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: that clinicians really struggle with it. It takes a lot
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: of time and it takes away attention from the clinical process.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: So we thought back then that maybe this is like
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a good place to start because we can at least
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: solve like one problem that matters to clinicians. And we
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: can also later see if we can somehow leverage this
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: data to, to like do more good. So for example,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: show them some extra patterns they're missing or suggest that like, Oh,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: this client, like we've seen similar clients somewhere else and
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: this helps them. So maybe, maybe try this or here's
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: a worksheet for you. Um, so we thought that that
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: mental health is missing actually this, um, like this kind
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: of data analytics that are already present in all the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: other industries, even at that time. So we didn't even
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: know if it can work, if we can actually write
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: notes because this whole like AI was not where it
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: is now. And we had a bit of a rocky start,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: like the whole first year we're just prototyping and then
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: we discovered HIPAA. So we spent like many, many months
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: on all possible encryptions and security practices to make sure
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: that even if we try this tool on any real
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: client session, that it's the most secure possible. So that
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: was also, I would say, maybe a bit different and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: harder than other industries, again, because from day one, you
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: cannot allow any error because the data is so precious
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: and sensitive.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Right. So.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we started from there and initially we created like
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: a basic progress note that some first brave clinicians decided
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: to adopt. And then we expanded from there. So we
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: added other note types, so intakes, treatment plans, like different templates,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: soaped up and many others. Then we expanded from individual
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: clients to couples, families, groups, etc. Then we also started
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: adding customizations for psychiatry, like versus social work and psychology
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: and ABA. And like everyone had a bit of a
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: different flavor to the notes they wanted. And over time,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: we actually started to track symptoms in therapy. So we
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: basically in intake notes, detect symptoms with their like frequency, um,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: intensity and onset and so on, right? And then because
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: we build the diagnosis in the note, so we need
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: to extract symptoms, impairments, look for medical necessity to document
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: it all, also for insurance.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Let me interrupt one second just to clarify this. So
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to have to repeat everything. So
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: what does Mentalic do?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: It started as an AI note taker. or otherwise called scribe.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So it basically converts either a recording, like an audio
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: recording of a session, or a dictated description by a
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: clinician into structured notes. And first it was just progress notes,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: but then intake, treatment plans, all of those other notes,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: so the full case notes set. And then after we
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: covered all of this, then we started actually going after
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: this like kind of original, original mission that I had
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: in mind, which was to leverage this data to try
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: to make therapy better and help clinicians like help clients
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: more effectively. So, uh, so then we actually started adding
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: those like the AI progress tracker. So it extracts those symptoms,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: tracks them over time, checks if the intensity or frequency
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: is changing.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Um, we also track progress towards goals from the treatment plan.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So it all is kind of like connected with each other.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: The treatment plan gets updated. The progress notes reflect the
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: goals from treatment plan. Um, and we also created a
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: tool that helps clinicians to reflect on their therapeutic alliance.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: So this is like, um, report that this build based
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: on like existing like therapeutic alliance inventory and, and other
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: like tests let's say questionnaires for this that are usually
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: administered to the client so we used them and worked
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: with a lot of supervisors as well to create this
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: framework that is giving like a kind of 360 overview
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: on different aspects of therapeutic alliance so i don't know
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: cultural competency if they let's say are like aligned on
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the goals and like keep going back to them how's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the empathy and and so on and we even look
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: at for example the talking time how much the therapist
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: is talking versus the client.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Oh wow and we.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Kind of show it all to the clinician like after
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the session um we we like take a lot of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: care to be kind of like non-judgmental because like what
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: do we know right we can just basically surface some
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: patterns or we've heard from many clinicians that they um
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: they are aware that they have some blind spots, but
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: they would love to have this like second pair of
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: eyes to see them better. So that's what we wanted
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: to create. Yeah, that's it.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I love this idea of what you talked about, kind
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of leveraging the information. In other words, being able to
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: have it, taking some progress notes, but then rather than
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: having to go back, pull out some folder or folder,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: or even like scroll through your, your documents to, to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: track certain symptoms, et cetera. This, this is doing that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: for you. This is showing you what symptoms are coming
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: up over and over again, or what patterns are coming.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: That's very powerful for a therapist. Yeah.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly that it's a difficult um like we kind of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: on one hand everyone wants to have this like evidence-based
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: care and like measurement-based care and all of those fancy
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: topics but it's it's very kind of difficult to to
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: make it practical because no one wants to send like
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: phk9 and gut7 like to every client after every session
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and it becomes robotic right also there's some bias like
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: if client wants to appear more depressed for insurance or
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: whatnot so we um we wanted to do it like
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: seamlessly in the background and something that we still actually
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: have not figured out. I'm actually very curious. What are
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: your thoughts or your audience is how to effectively track progress, um, in,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: in not this like CBT medical sort of model with symptoms,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: but like we, we really try to find like, um, progress.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So the framework, um, that would encompass like all of the,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: let's say, like skills and new perspectives and how you,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: let's say, drop some of those defense mechanisms or even
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: there are more like abstract things, right? Like, I don't know,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: have different dreams you talk about or something. There are
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: so many different ways. We've talked with so many clinicians.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: It seems like everyone agrees that progress is not linear,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: but no one knows what shape it has.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, I guess my thought on that would be,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Progress for each client is going to be defined differently.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Healing is going to be defined differently. Getting better is
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: going to be defined differently. For one person, it might
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: mean being able to put their shoes on. For another,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it might mean having my anxiety symptoms reduced, right? So
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I think those would have to be identified at the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: outset or enable a user of this to... uh, be
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: able to, to, to clearly define those, what those, you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: if you're my client, okay, Maria, you know, what's progress
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: going to look like? Well, it's going to look like a,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: B and C. So, and therefore, and then once you
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: have those defined, then you're able to track them over time. Um,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: so we kind of touched a little bit on this,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: but so who is this for?
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Um, the, the whole tool in general for clinicians in
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: mental health, um.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Metallic is for therapists of all kinds, clinicians
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of all kinds.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: We actually have a lot of those customizations that work
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: for anybody. modality, really. Therapists choose their modality. So we
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: have some extra EMDR or even brain spotting, extra sections
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: in nodes that positive cognition would not make sense to
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: any other clinician, for example. So we have play therapy
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: for kids, So any modality, really. And so it's like counselors, therapists,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: social workers, also psychiatrists, just anyone in mental health. So
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: no physicians or massage therapists, just mental health of any type.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. And so how does it work? They come to
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: your site. What do they do? Are they signing up
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: for what?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: For a free trial first. So we have a 14-day
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: trial with 15 notes that can be done for testing it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: And then we have just monthly or annual subscription. So
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: different plans, they can have more notes or less notes
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: or let's say more templates or some people just need,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: let's say, soap note or just individual clients and someone
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: else might have groups. Then we can have like up
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: to 10 people in the group and everyone can get
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: their own notes. Everyone can be seen individually and have
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: their own treatment plan. So a lot of those, exactly
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: like I would say on this market, as now there
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: are more and more tools showing up, we definitely have
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: most of those edge cases and customizations covered because we're
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: also the oldest tool on this market. The one that
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: wanted to see if it's possible.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And in terms of support, What type of support does
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Metallic offer or have?
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: How do you mean?
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Someone has a question. They're working on something.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of YouTube videos, FAQs on the page, articles,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and also, of course, our customer support team. When you're
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: in our app, there's a widget in the corner of
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: a chat bubble. And you can talk directly to our
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: team members. We also get on a lot of calls
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: with users. We even run regularly customer research, you could
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: call it user research. We have actually anthropologists on the
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: team and we really want to always be up to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: date with what clinicians need and how we can improve.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: So it's definitely not any problem to get in touch
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: with us. We do talk to therapists all the time.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Okay. So again, this is like an app. I can
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: download it on my phone. If I'm seeing a client,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I can just put it on the desk and they
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: can record and then transcribe the whole session.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. So it's a so-called web app. So it works
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: like a website.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: But you can pin it as like an icon on
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: your phone.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Then it just works like an app.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: But you cannot download it from like an app store.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So that's why it's important that you look for it
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: in the browser.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Just mentalic.com is their website. And, but otherwise, yes, you
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: can do exactly that. You can record it. If it's
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: an in-person session on the phone, if it's a telehealth session,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: it can like directly through Chrome as an extension, connect
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: to like any tool. So it could be anything from
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: like zoom or, or even this tool that we're using here.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Good work. Okay.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Okay. Awesome. All right, Maria, look, appreciate you coming on
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: here and sharing your own story. Um, It's so inspiring, really,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to talk to someone like you who goes through this process,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: goes through their own mental health journey, and then just
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: to turn things around and to say, you know what,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I want to help other people. That's very powerful.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you for saying that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and very inspiring, too. So I appreciate you coming
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: on here. How do people learn more about you and Mentalic?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: What's the best way?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Our website, I would say. So, mentalic.com.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It's spelled as like mentalyc.com.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's spelled like I said it initially. M-E-N-T-A-L-Y-C. Mentalic. Okay.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: We also have this YouTube channel, social media channels. I
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: have also my LinkedIn profile where we also post a
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: mentalic profile. But, yeah, I guess mentalic.com would be the
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: most straightforward one.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you being on here and sharing your story. Thank
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: you so much for being here. Take care.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you again.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: All right. Bye-bye.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Bye.