IRB approved · enrolling Study · Prove
PTSD, adults
Research goal · efficacy and durability in adults with PTSD
Partner
Mount Sinai — Schiller Lab
Projects · where the thinking gets tested
The questions we cannot answer alone.
MyWhatIf began with a question: could restoring someone’s ability to imagine a better future support recovery from trauma? We are pursuing it two ways at once. Studying the model with researchers and clinicians, and putting hope into practice with communities that need it now.
Different populations.
Different settings.
Different questions.
One purpose.
Restoring the capacity to imagine what comes next.
Every project below takes one part of that somewhere real: a hospital, a youth service, a room of people trying to change something in their community. Each is listed with its status, and a question stays a question until the work answers it. Why we think this might work →
Study
What can we learn?
Implement
Who can we support now?
Every implementation teaches us something. Every study helps us build the next one more responsibly. We do not wait for one to finish before starting the other.
Research strategy
Four questions, in four parts
Questions being tested. None is answered yet.
The studies below follow one strategy. Each part is a question the research is designed to test. The early proof-of-concept cohort was uncontrolled, so it does not answer any of them.
01 · Prove
Does it outperform control conditions, and does change last?
Efficacy and durability.
PTSD · depression · acute trauma
02 · Understand
For whom does it work, and why?
Are changes in hope and agency associated with changes in symptoms?
Youth · families · veterans · civilians
03 · Extend
Can it strengthen other treatments?
Psychedelic-assisted therapy · hyperbaric medicine · standard care
04 · How far can it go?
Chronic pain, fatigue and additional populations.
Studies at this stage
Chronic pain and fatigue The idea being tested
Hope could become a deliberate, measurable target of trauma recovery, rather than only a consequence of it.
The portfolio
Seven studies and four programs
U.S. · Canada · Israel
A study is research designed to answer a scientific question. A program is an impact program run with a partner. Programs are not clinical trials.
Studies · 7
PTSD, adults Mount Sinai — Schiller Lab IRB approved · enrolling Who benefits, and when University of Haifa — Dr. Ziv Ben-Zion In development Chronic pain and fatigue Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre · University of Toronto In development Youth and families, ages 14–25 University of Alberta · University of Guelph · Guardians Mental Health Research Institute (GMHRI) IRB approved Acute trauma, depression, suicide prevention Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre · University of Toronto In development Psychedelic-assisted therapy + MyWhatIf Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre · Mount Sinai · University of Haifa In development Hyperbaric medicine + MyWhatIf Shamir Medical Center In development
Programs · 4 · not clinical trials
Hope Lab — civic leaders TAU Impact + Tel Aviv University Center for Civic Hope Open now Family caregivers STAR Network Foundation Open now · Free University students Tel Aviv University In design Veterans University of Haifa + Mount Sinai In development
Who
Ages 14 to 25, adults, veterans, family caregivers, students, civic leaders
Context
Acute trauma, depression, suicide prevention, longer-term trauma, civic and social change work
Setting
Hospital, youth service, university, community
Country
U.S. · Canada · Israel
01 · Studying the model
Research and clinical studies
Status is stated as it stands. Only one study is described as enrolling.
In development Study · Understand
Who benefits, and when
Partner
University of Haifa — Dr. Ziv Ben-Zion
In development Study · How far can it go?
Chronic pain and fatigue
Partners
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
University of Toronto
University of Toronto
IRB approved Study · Understand Edmonton, Canada · ages 14 to 25
Youth and families, ages 14–25
Can restoring hope, agency and purpose help young people recover from trauma?
Scientific question · change in trauma symptoms, hope, agency and purpose, alongside acceptability and emotional safety, in adolescents and young adults with trauma or depression across inpatient and outpatient settings
Adolescence is where a difficult account of your own life can set. Working with the University of Alberta, the University of Guelph and the Guardians Mental Health Research Institute, this study has young people and their parents or caregivers each go through MyWhatIf in parallel. It asks whether the capacities MyWhatIf is designed around can be strengthened at that age, and whether the experience is safe and welcome while it happens.
Partners
University of Alberta
University of Guelph
Guardians Mental Health Research Institute (GMHRI)
University of Guelph
Guardians Mental Health Research Institute (GMHRI)
Who it is for
Adolescents and young people with trauma or depression, ages 14 to 17 and 18 to 25, inpatients and outpatients. Their parents or caregivers also go through MyWhatIf, in parallel with their children
Measuring
PCL-5, Adult Hope Scale (AHS), Children’s Hope Scale (CHS), agency, purpose, acceptability, emotional safety
In development Study · Prove Canada · hospital setting
Acute trauma, depression, suicide prevention
Can strengthening hope and agency support recovery from acute trauma and depression, and contribute to suicide prevention?
Scientific question · whether the intervention can be delivered well in a hospital setting, and whether trauma symptoms and hope change, across acute trauma, depression and suicide prevention
This planned study brings three areas together: acute trauma, depression and suicide prevention. With Sunnybrook and the University of Toronto, it asks whether working on hope can support people in each of them, and whether the intervention can be delivered well in a hospital setting. It asks what the intervention can do. It does not assume the answer.
Partners
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
University of Toronto
University of Toronto
Investigators
Dr. Janet Ellis
Dr. Sean Nestor
Dr. Mark Sinyor
Dr. Sean Nestor
Dr. Mark Sinyor
Who it is for
Patients in a hospital setting, across the study’s three areas: acute trauma, depression and suicide prevention
In development Study · Extend
Psychedelic-assisted therapy + MyWhatIf
Partners
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Mount Sinai
University of Haifa
Mount Sinai
University of Haifa
In development Study · Extend
Hyperbaric medicine + MyWhatIf
Partner
Shamir Medical Center
02 · Putting hope into practice
Impact programs
Programs, not clinical trials. A program may be evaluated; evaluation is not a trial, and we do not present it as one.
The Hope Lab Program · not a clinical trial Israel · civic leaders
Can strengthening hope help social change leaders build better collective futures?
Program purpose · strengthening hope, agency and leadership for social change, through a structured process combining civic hope learning, group reflection and MyWhatIf
Hope is usually discussed as something a person recovers. The Hope Lab treats it as a capability that leaders need in order to work: imagining shared futures, getting past the barriers in front of them, and turning hope into action other people can join. This is where the architecture reaches past individual trauma recovery.
Open now → 
Partners
TAU Impact + Tel Aviv University Center for Civic Hope
Who it serves
Social change leaders
Format
Civic hope learning, group reflection, MyWhatIf, individual and group support
Cohorts
Cohorts designed for approximately 15–20 participants
Evaluation
Pre and post assessment
Status
Open now
Program · Family caregivers
Making room for the person who cares for everyone else.
With STAR Network Foundation, MyWhatIf combines structured reflection with human peer support and community in a free program for family caregivers.
In design Program · Israel · university students
What happens when students have a private place to imagine what comes next?
Program purpose · designing a way to make the hope intervention available to students at Tel Aviv University, outside any clinical pathway
A separate program from the Hope Lab, and a different population. Students carry a great deal without it becoming a clinical matter, and few of them will take it to a service. This program is being designed to put the experience within reach of anyone who wants it.
Partner
Tel Aviv University
Who it serves
TAU Students
Scale
Not yet published
Duration
Not yet published
Evaluation
Not yet defined
Status
In design
In development Program · veterans
Veterans
Partners
University of Haifa + Mount Sinai
Status
In development
03 · The human layer
Ecosystem collaborators
MyWhatIf works alongside the people, communities and services that make recovery possible.
Structured individual reflection is one part of recovery. Around it sits peer support, clinical care, and formal crisis response. These are not interchangeable, and MyWhatIf is not trying to replace any of them.
Ecosystem collaborator Peer support · suicide-prevention · lived-experience communities
STAR Network Foundation
Together with STAR Network Foundation, MyWhatIf launched the Family Caregiver Program, combining structured, hope-centered reflection with STAR's peer-support and community experience. The program is open now — see the record above.
A formal crisis-response pathway is in place, supported by a safety protocol developed with the Clinical Development Board and Dr. Ziv Ben-Zion, alongside peer/community pathways with STAR Network Foundation. MyWhatIf is not emergency care; people in immediate danger should use local emergency services.
Peer/community infrastructure referenced: TAR Anon and Caregiver Connections.
Contributes
Lived-experience communities, structured peer support, suicide-prevention experience
Boundary
Peer support is not clinical care. Neither replaces emergency care. People in immediate danger should use local emergency services.
Studies ask what changes. Implementations ask who it reaches. The human layer asks who has to be there when the platform is not enough.
Our studies ask
Does it help?
For whom?
What changes?
Does that change last?
Our implementations ask
Can people use it?
Where does it fit?
What support do they need beside it?
How can it reach more people responsibly?
Neither set is answered yet. Answering them is the work.
Work with us
Have a question we should test together, or a community we should serve?
Two ways in. If you are a researcher or clinician with a question worth answering, or an institution that wants to bring the hope intervention to people you already serve, we would like to hear from you. The portfolio grows by conversation, not by campaign.