The Therapy Atlas - UX Case Study

Therapy Atlas was conceived as a gentler alternative to clinical intake forms and algorithmic therapist directories — a poetic, trauma-sensitive space where people can translate their symptoms, body sensations, and history into a clear map of therapies that might genuinely fit. The experience guides users through a calm, conversational questionnaire and then synthesizes their answers into a personalised “atlas” of modalities—somatic, cognitive, and integrative—each explained in plain language with resonance cues and cost ranges, offering options to explore rather than diagnoses or prescriptions.

Problem

People looking for therapy—especially with complex or body-held trauma—are overwhelmed by jargon, clinical intake forms, and thousands of modalities that all sound the same. They often end up in mismatched therapies that feel unsafe or ineffective because there’s no gentle, embodied way to understand what might actually fit them.

UX Process

I mapped common symptoms, body sensations, histories, and therapy “vibes” into a shared language, then paired that with research on somatic and cognitive modalities to define a high-level matching model. From there I prototyped a step-by-step, trauma-sensitive flow—testing tone, questions, and visual hierarchy—to ensure every screen felt like a calm conversation, not an assessment, and culminated in a clear “therapy atlas” of options rather than a diagnosis.

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UX Challenges & Solutions

Overwhelm & jargon fatigue – Translated clinical language into warm, plain-English prompts and microcopy that feel like a conversation, not an assessment.

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Disconnection from the body – Introduced an interactive body map so users can locate tension, numbness, and pain as part of their narrative, not as an afterthought.
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Fear of being pathologized – Framed every step around “what to honour” and “what brings you here” instead of diagnoses or labels; repeated safety disclaimers.
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Therapy choice paralysis – Collapsed dozens of modalities into a shared attribute model (somatic vs cognitive, gentle vs directive, depth vs skills) and surfaced only a curated set of matches.
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Mistrust of “magic matching” – Exposed “Why this appeared for you” on each modality card so users see the link between their inputs and the suggested approaches.

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Research & Data Foundation

  • Mapped common presenting themes: anxiety, numbness, burnout, flashbacks, loss of meaning, creative block, etc.
  • Reviewed literature and reputable sources on somatic and cognitive therapies (SE, Sensorimotor, TRE, Polyvagal, Somatic IFS, CBT, DBT, etc.) and their typical indications.
  • Spoke informally with therapy clients and trauma-informed practitioners about what made previous therapy fits feel safe or unsafe.
  • Audited existing therapist directories and quiz tools to identify gaps around body-awareness, tone, and transparency of what each modality actually does.
  • Derived a taxonomy of dimensions (body vs mind focus, intensity, structure, spirituality, relational depth) to power matching logic.

UX Process

Wireframing

  • Sketched a linear, story-like flow from “What brings you here today?” to “Where does your body hold the story?” to “History to honour” and “How you’d like the process to feel.”

Logic & Rule System

  • Encoded each user input (symptom, body area, history tag, preference tag) as weights along core dimensions:
  • body-focus, cognitive-focus
  • depth vs skills/structured
  • intensity vs gentle
  • relational / attachment focus
  • spiritual / existential openness

Defined per-modality profiles along the same dimensions plus typical use cases (e.g. “numbness”, “complex trauma”, “panic”, “relational wounds”).
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Built a simple scoring engine that aggregates user weights, scores each modality, and ranks them by “resonance” rather than probability or diagnosis.
Added guardrails to avoid over-narrowing: always surface a mix of somatic and cognitive options, plus at least one lower-intensity choice.

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Output

Each Therapy Atlas card displays:

  • Modality name and category (Somatic, Modern, Cognitive)
  • Typical fee range (e.g. EUR 80–150 / session)
  • 1–2 sentence description in plain language
  • Evidence + “resonance” bars
  • Tags like gentle, explorative, body, expressive, structured

Modality detail views expand with:

  • “Why this appeared for you” (linking back to user inputs)
  • “What a session might explore” (e.g. movement tracking, impulse completion, skills training)
  • “Often helpful for…” chips (numbness, complex trauma, panic, etc.)

A soft reminder: “Informational only – not diagnosis or prescription.”

Information Architecture

Each “user journey” record internally includes:

  • Presenting concerns (chips selected on step one)
  • Body map selections (regions of tension / numbness)
  • History markers (developmental trauma, medical trauma, relational wounds, etc.)
  • Therapy preference dimensions (gentle, directive, spiritual, clinical, body-focused, depth work, etc.)
  • Computed dimension weights and modality scores
  • Set of surfaced modalities + rationales (“because you selected…”)

Each modality record includes:

  • Category (Somatic / Cognitive / Modern)
  • Core dimensions (body/cognitive, intensity, structure, spirituality, relational focus)
  • Short & long descriptions + session themes
  • Indications (“often helpful for…”)
  • Cost range and availability notes

Results & Features

  • Users can complete the full Therapy Atlas journey in just a few minutes without needing to disclose a diagnosis or write essays.
    Instead of a single “match”, they receive a small, human-readable map of 6–10 modalities that actually differ in feel, not just in name.
  • Every screen reinforces agency: users can go back, change answers, or simply read about modalities without committing to any path.
  • The experience shifts the inner story from “I don’t even know what kind of help I need” to “I can see several ways my body and history could be met — and I know what each one is roughly for.”
  • Brand and interface deliberately celebrate tenderness, nuance, and embodied wisdom over quick fixes, making the tool feel like a companion, not a diagnostic machine.

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