At UC Davis, it takes around a month to get an appointment with a therapist, and in other regions, the wait times can be even longer. This reflects a broader national issue: There is a significant shortage of mental health professionals, making it difficult to access timely and adequate care. The demand for therapy far outpaces the supply, leaving many people without the support they need during critical moments.
Even when therapy is accessible, oftentimes, challenges remain from ineffective or untimely communication between therapist and patients. While therapists may be able to give worthwhile advice and coping strategies, these can be difficult to implement if patients don’t feel like they are being heard or understood. This can become emotionally taxing on many individuals - making the act of leaving sessions feeling more anxious, depressed, or uncertain than the arrival.
Further, since therapy sessions are structured as weekly meetings, they often lack the granularity of day-to-day human experiences. Patients might have personal insights at one point in the week and the struggle to remember or convey them to their therapist. Without a clear direction or actionable steps in combination with timely intervention, patients often feel frustrated and uncertain about therapy.
The goal of the Canopy app is to provide a centralized platform that empowers both patients and their therapists. By facilitating proactive communication between patients and therapists, as well as collecting day to day patient insight between therapy sessions, our app will fill a growing need for informed communication. This includes a reflection system that captures daily experiences and underlying emotions, as well as relationships, and a social management system that strengthens and tracks meaningful human connections while maintaining personal boundaries.
| Platform | IOS (Future WatchOS and/or Macos Support ) |
|---|---|
| IDE | XCode |
| Programming language | Swift, Python (maybe) |
| Libraries’ framework | SwiftUI, Firebase, Gemini, UIKit |
- Four-Dimensional Reflection System
- (Output) → What did I create today?
- (Input) → What did I learn today?
- (Expansion) → How did I connect with the world today?
- (Stability) → How did I take care of myself today?
- Contradiction Diary
- A dedicated space to document personal contradictions, doubts, and inner conflicts.
- AI-driven analysis to help break down, explore, and resolve internal struggles.
- Guiding prompts to track evolving perspectives (e.g., “What do I feel vs. what do I think?”).
- Mood & Energy Tracker → Map emotional states to identify patterns. Establish visualizable trends
- Weekly Summary → AI-generated summary, insights and analysis to be enjoyed by both patient and therapist based on daily logging.