Hey there,

This letter is going to be more of a thesis declaration and call to action than our usual educational content, but I think you'll appreciate it. If you've been reading awhile, you know this newsletter is a project of Helicon. Helicon is a clinician-led, disabled-veteran owned, public-benefit corporation with the big audacious goal to provide a response to the mental health crisis by helping therapists expand their EMDR proficiency, and their impact on society.

So let's dive in.

The Problem

It's probably no secret the mental health of our society isn't doing well. Symptoms (or causes) include: growing polarization between neighbors, fragmentation and mistrust in our institutions and leaders, misguided use of religion and spirituality, unending war and conflict, racism, replacing human relationships with AI relationships, a consistent suicide rate year after year that should make your stomach turn, extreme climate swings, mass shootings, billionaire pedophiles, a two-tier justice system... the list could go on. It's bad out there.

Some stats we care about:

The reasons for the above are legion and go far beyond the scope of this letter, but to assess the existing framework of the mental health industry that people say they hope can fix these issues - our current mental health infrastructure looks something like this:

Payor driven models that force quantity over quality, without paying clinicians livable wages. Creates clinics dominated by new, inexperienced clinicians, or end of career burned out clinicians without enough energy to leave - and clinicians in their prime who leave for private practice or take their clinical skills to another field.

Tech companies then extract hundreds of millions from Silicon Valley to create 'solutions' for the mental health space, which either turn into a digital version of the above scenario, or provide therapeutic or administrative tools to support clinics in the above scenario (or AI tools that are actively slurping up therapist recordings to train their own models to try and replace you). Most are living in the same dysfunctional paradigm, and don't seem to care about empowering mental health providers (you know, the ones who are the backbone of the mental health industry) or making their lives better. In fact, they often just perpetuate therapist burnout (not great if you actually want to improve mental health in our society).

There are only a few who are choosing to look outside the box and imagine a solution that doesn't pander to the status quo, and instead inspire something different - and most of them don't seem to care about Silicon Valley or insurance models.

And none of them seem to be leveraging what is arguably the most cost-effective, high-impact, rapid-resolution mental health treatment modality in existence: EMDR.

Some more stats to drive the point home:

The Solution

EMDR therapists are consistently sought after, due to its well established reputation through clinical research and decades of practice in the real world, as a highly-effective treatment modality that's often quicker and gentler than other options. Many are starting to understand what EMDR therapists have known all along: EMDR can actually heal the deep rooted issues that underlie pathology, and provide a more robust solution than almost every other approach.

Helicon's main thesis is that we can build an ecosystem to support mental health providers in becoming highly proficient EMDR clinicians, empower them with tools to advance their skillsets and their careers, and leverage the network to expand EMDR access to the world in creative, meaningful ways.

Our approach is unique, in that we are building technology to support and enable therapists (and in the future connect them with EMDR therapy seekers) - but in terms of care delivery, we want to stay out of their way.

Through our own lived experience as clinicians, we know therapists provide their best services when they have autonomy and they feel supported, empowered, and connected to other clinicians they can lean on if they run into issues. Care delivery suffers when therapists are under oppressive policies, supervisors, and institutional demands that conflict with the ethos of their profession.

Helicon is daring to challenge the status quo for a mental health tech startup, by focusing on what really matters - and it's reflected in our core values:

Autonomy

We endeavor to empower therapists with agency, supporting those who balance both freedom and responsibility. We live that out through how we treat every stakeholder we interact with and build services for.

Magnanimity

While we aim to innovate, we are guided by a spirit of honor, benevolence, selflessness, and collaboration. We try to embody that through our offerings and how we conduct ourselves as humans.

Advancement

We know the future is built by people and systems who never stop learning, taking deliberate steps toward higher performance. We aim to support the advancement of clinicians and the field of EMDR, while also seeking to be the best version of ourselves we can be.

What Success Will Look Like

If Helicon is successful at reaching our long-term vision, we will live in a world where EMDR is something every clinician has an opportunity to utilize, and feels supported with at any stage of their journey; those who build, serve, and sustain our society will be benefitting from EMDR therapy to support health and resilience; and anyone suffering will be able to easily find and access EMDR therapy. As a public-benefit corporation, we will also direct some profits toward expanding research to further understand and prove EMDR efficacy.

While we're not naive to think we alone can end tribalism, wars, suicide, mass shootings, billionaire pedophiles, etc... We do believe that if EMDR were to become a cornerstone of mental health in our world and anyone suffering could benefit from this powerful tool - then society would have a pretty solid and resilient foundation to begin tackling some of those larger problems with.

In the Waves and War Netflix documentary, I heard a special operations combat veteran who faced early childhood trauma make a statement that I'll paraphrase: "I'm starting to wonder if we didn't hurt our kids, would we even have wars?"

I think it's a good question to ponder - and I think could be applied to more of the challenges we face as a society than just war.

And having used EMDR myself to help many hundreds of adults heal their inner child (and my own) and begin living in ways that are fundamentally more adaptive, healthy and whole; I am left believing that a broad foundation of support and access to EMDR is a solid bet to make a meaningful impact on societal mental health and the ongoing crisis we're witnessing.

Present Day Reality

Since we can't change the world in one afternoon, we're starting slow and small - humble. To maintain our values and ethos, we are not raising venture capital funds. We are bootstrapping ourselves, while staying open to angel investment if we find a few folks who are passionate about our vision and want to help us build this faster. Psst... huge thanks to our first early $20k investor!

Our App

We are focused right now on the initial service offering that we've heard from dozens of therapists we've connected with over the past year is desperately needed in the space: a tool for consultation matching and tracking. Features on our early tech platform are designed to help EMDR therapists find each other to consult for any need that may exist as an EMDR clinician: from standard protocol, certification, advanced applications, or even business considerations.

And, we're adding a few other cool perks for early EMDR therapist users who subscribe. Think: learning resources, discounted third-party service and training offerings, private messaging, and even an old-school chat room.

Based on our own experience and conversations with other EMDR providers, we think these early features will be received well by our users. And like these early features, anything else we build in the future will be guided by our core values stated above.

But in short, we are at the very bottom left of our roadmap:

Since early January, we've been testing the app with live users - a dozen or so EMDR therapists (thank you!) - to identify and patch bugs. We have Stripe subscriptions integrated, guided onboarding mostly complete, internal private messaging working, and are beginning to test the consultation matching features between users.

Our goal is to launch a beta version of our app sometime in May, and will be offering early access to our waitlist sign-ups.

Our Team

We are in the process of starting a code review relationship with software engineers to confirm the code is safe and ready to launch to a wider user base and able to scale. If that all goes well, we may be able to reasonably offer a public beta launch sometime in May (offering early access to our waitlist), but that is heavily contingent upon a smooth code review process. Stay tuned!

I am so fortunate to have a strong, talented team of individuals helping Helicon develop. Our co-founder John Dolores, Ph.D, J.D., has been instrumental in keeping things focused and on track, finding ways to support our advisors, and ensuring we aren't neglecting any of our duties as a Delaware corporation while I work on the software and engage with stakeholders. We connected initially while commiserating about the status quo in the behavioral health industry, and committed to building something different for the world. Thanks for sticking with it, John!

Our advisory team has grown into an amazing group (and still growing). These folks are just incredible and I cannot thank them enough for being here:

All things considered, we are looking good for a young startup led by clinicians who still have normal day-jobs (in my case, that means seeing a full caseload of EMDR clients).

How You Can Help or Get Involved

If you can't tell, we're trying to build more than just a startup. We're trying to build a movement. Things like this take time, but even more, they require passionate people. People who are inspired by the vision and willing to raise their hand to contribute in whatever way possible.

If this has inspired you, I invite you to join us on this journey in any way that feels meaningful:

1. EMDR Therapist Sign-Up

Current or future EMDR clinicians are invited to sign up for what Helicon is building on our website here: gowithhelicon.com.

For now, the sign-up button at the above site links to our waitlist form. Waitlist sign-ups will receive early access invites!
Once we launch the platform for public use, the platform sign-up will exist at that same weblink above.

2. Spread the Word

Share this vision with others in your network.

Forward this email to friends or colleagues.
Subscribe to the newsletter if you're not already.
Follow us on LinkedIn: Helicon | Founder
Connect us with accredited investors who might be inspired by our vision too.

3. Become a Supporting Member

If any of the following apply to you, we invite you to become a monthly Supporting Member.

If you:

aren't a clinician but love us and what we're building,
have benefitted personally from EMDR or know someone who has,
love the vision of expanding high-quality EMDR to veterans, first responders, emergency medical, and other high-stakes professions,
want to empower more clinicians to become EMDR experts,
or just want to support a clinician-led, disabled veteran owned, public benefit corporation.

Your $9/month subscription directly supports our ongoing development costs. As a way to keep you connected to the impact you're making, you’ll receive a private quarterly update from our CEO on Helicon developments.

Note: We are a Delaware public-benefit corporation, not a nonprofit, so this is a subscription rather than a tax-deductible donation.

Accredited Investors: Please reach out to explore investment in Helicon.

Thank You

There you have it. You're all caught up on the inner workings of Helicon. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading and for being part of this journey with us. This has been a labor of love for me, and I'm so excited to see the momentum forming. The rest of this year will reveal a lot for us, and will truly validate how much our thesis matters.

If you answer the call above to get more involved, please know that you are a crucial part of this mission now. In 10 years from now when Helicon is making a massive impact on the world, you can be proud knowing that you helped it come to life.

Seriously, thank you for the support! Onward we march.

In gratitude,

Christopher Brown

CEO of Helicon

EMDRIA Certified Therapist and Approved Consultant

Thanks for reading Helicon's EMDR Therapist Weekly, where we aim to provide a weekly dose of insights, tools, and opportunities for EMDR therapists; designed to support your growth, sharpen your practice, and connect you with what's next.

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Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for informational purposes only. This is not legal or clinical advice and we make no guarantees about the outcomes or results from information shared in this document. Proceed at your own risk and discretion.

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