A big update
Healing Space has changed a great deal over the last few weeks. Here is what is different, and where it is heading.
What has changed
- One simple space. Healing Space has been rebuilt around a single conversation. You type about your week in your own words, and soon you will be able to talk instead. There are no forms to fill in about yourself: if you mention how you slept or how you feel, Healing Space can offer to keep it, and nothing is kept until you say yes.
- You choose what your therapist sees. Before each session you pick up to five things to bring, in your own words. Your therapist sees only what you approve, from two hours before the session.
- Your therapist’s words, kept. After a session your therapist can share a short summary with you, word for word. Their private notes stay private.
- No crisis system, and nobody alerted. We removed every crisis and monitoring feature. Healing Space never alerts anyone about what you say. The helplines are always one tap away in the app, and at the top of every page of this website.
- Your information stays close. When the pilot starts, the AI will run in London and the app will be hosted in Europe. Phone numbers, email addresses, NHS numbers and postcodes you type are removed before anything reaches the AI.
- Talking, privately. Talk uses Healing Space’s own speech service in Europe, which keeps no audio. It works in testing and is being finished for the pilot.
What comes next
Three therapists in private practice have agreed in principle to a small pilot, with clients who choose to take part. It starts only when the safety, privacy and legal work is done: a data protection impact assessment, a clinical risk log, written agreements, plain-English information for clients, and a professional check of all of it.
Something bigger
We have also set out a bigger plan. People differ in what helps them, so we are working towards a Healing Space that adapts to the person using it: quieter and simpler for those who want less, more structure or more to explore for those who want more, always by their own choice. We are also working towards therapists being able to add their own between-session exercises, with clients deciding what, if anything, their therapist sees. These are plans, not promises: each has to pass the same safety and privacy checks before anyone uses it.
What has not changed
Healing Space is not a therapist and not a crisis service, and it does not diagnose. We have not shown that it improves outcomes; the pilot is where we start to learn. What is and is not in place today is on the Trust Centre, and the plan is on Where we are.