After trauma, imagining a better tomorrow can feel impossible. MyWhatIf is an applied research nonprofit helping people rebuild hope, agency and purpose, and the early signals say it works.
What does trauma take away?
Not only a sense of safety. For many people, trauma narrows the future they believe is possible. Known from research
Sources +
Most recovery works on what happened.
MyWhatIf works on what can happen next.
What needs to come back?
Three capacities. Not a mood, and not a personality trait.
Hope is measurable, and how much of it a person has predicts how far their trauma symptoms fall.
Known from researchSources +
The ability to imagine that a different future is possible.
The belief and ability to participate in shaping that future.
A reason to move toward it.
Dignity is not a fourth capacity and not something we measure. It is the principle that governs how everyone in this work is treated.
It starts with your question.
What a person actually does, in four moves.
A meaningful What If? about your own past or future.
Your experiences, values, beliefs and relationships shape what comes next.
Personalised narrative experiences, built to help you imagine possibilities trauma may have made harder to see.
Over time, the intervention works on the capacities we measure. Hope. Agency. Purpose.
Personalised to the person, not the average.
See the science and system underneath →"I felt held. It felt like I was in something safe. I felt loved."
of 200 early participants with PTSD reported meaningful symptom improvement.
LIMITATION: SELF-REPORT, NO CONTROL GROUP, NOT PEER REVIEWED, SINGLE POPULATION
STATUS: EARLY SIGNAL. IT IS THE REASON TO RUN THE TRIALS, NOT A RESULT OF THEM.
When one person changes, the effects rarely stop with them.
We are actively studying MyWhatIf with universities, hospitals, and research partners across multiple populations and settings.
You care for someone else. This space is for you.
With STAR Network Foundation — structured reflection, human peer support and community.
With STAR Network Foundation.
Explore the Caregiver Program → Explore the program →This work is not being built alone.
Building a new model for trauma recovery takes many researchers, clinicians, hospitals, universities, community organizations, volunteers, and people willing to test novel ideas seriously.
covers the technology cost of providing one person with a six-week MyWhatIf program.
A current operating figure covering the delivered cost of the six weeks, including technology and insurance. It is not a permanent or universal cost, and not a claim about outcome.
Most of it falls on employers, insurers and government, not on the individual living with it. MyWhatIf is free to the person who uses it.
GEOGRAPHY: UNITED STATES · COST YEAR: 2018
PER PERSON: $19,630 PER INDIVIDUAL WITH PTSD, PER YEAR
SPLIT: $189.5BN CIVILIAN, $42.7BN MILITARY
METHOD: PREVALENCE-BASED EXCESS COSTS OVER A MATCHED NON-PTSD POPULATION, MODELLED FROM INSURANCE CLAIMS DATA, PUBLISHED LITERATURE AND GOVERNMENT SOURCES
LIMITATION: A MODELLED ESTIMATE, NOT A MEASURED EXPENDITURE. CATEGORY FIGURES ARE APPROXIMATE AND DO NOT SUM EXACTLY TO THE TOTAL. NOT A FIGURE ANY PROGRAMME CAN CLAIM TO RECOVER
Trauma is experienced individually.
Its consequences accumulate collectively.
PHILANTHROPY FUNDS THE BRIDGE FROM EARLY EVIDENCE TO VALIDATED, DEPLOYABLE INFRASTRUCTURE. AS REIMBURSEMENT AND RESPONSIBLE LICENSING COVER OPERATING COSTS, PHILANTHROPY CAN FOCUS ON ACCESS, RESEARCH AND UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS AROUND THE WORLD.
Research, projects, stories, and what we are learning about trauma recovery.
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