The crisis situation experienced in recent months has marked a before and after in the lives of many people, especially concerning health and emotional well-being.
The information that has emerged over these months regarding mental health, and seeing the effects this situation has had on the general population, led Gabriela Ramírez and Eduardo Lantigua, former students of the Master in Clinical and Health Psychology, to start questioning how they could bring information about emotional management to the public during these times to help them manage their emotions in the best possible way.
After interviewing people who had already been confined to their homes for two to three weeks, they observed that the most common symptoms affecting their emotional state were related to anxiety, depression, lack of solutions, and a negativized view of the situation. It was at this point that they realized the population needed a resource to help them cope with these frustrations, and that’s how psychologists Gabriela Ramírez and Eduardo Lantigua, along with designers Éléa Khadre and Unai Abersasturi, created Sayf.
Sayf. is an application whose objective is to provide users with a space where they can freely express their feelings, both publicly and privately. In this way, users can keep an emotional record where they can see the progress of their mood and analyze which has been the most common emotion over a given period of time.
Likewise, the fact that users can share their emotions with other Sayf. users contributes to creating a sense of belonging to a community. It is at this point that the professional profiles that are part of the Sayf. community come into play, as they will be responsible for leading the different communities created based on their areas of expertise.
Similarly, this fact will represent for some Sayf. users their first real contact with a mental health professional with whom they can start therapy according to their needs.
According to Gabriela Ramírez, this has opened up the possibility for health professionals to explore a different field than they were accustomed to until now, thus expanding the scope of their profession.
Therefore, it’s not surprising when Eduardo Lantigua confessed that “Sayf. was more than an application, as it was a tool that would benefit both the users who used it and the professional profiles that would be part of this community”.
Beyond the creation of Sayf., both Eduardo Lantigua and Gabriela Ramírez have pointed out that their time at ISEP has favorably contributed to the development of the app, since it was during the Master’s program that they began to meet health professionals from other countries, while also confirming the importance of psychoeducation in a field like mental health.
In Gabriela Ramírez’s case, she acknowledges that this project reminded her a lot of the ISEP Lidera module, in which she learned not only the structure a project of this magnitude should have but also the aspects to consider when carrying it out.
Furthermore, the psychologist adds that thanks to all the tools provided and the values instilled in them by ISEP, they have been able to apply them to Sayf., which has undoubtedly benefited the project.
For his part, Eduardo Lantigua acknowledges that after studying at ISEP and working on the development of Sayf., he now has a greater number of professional and personal tools.
Likewise, Eduardo highlights that this project has been a great challenge for him since all the work had to be developed online, due to the participation of professionals not only from various countries but also with very different professional profiles. Nevertheless, the psychologist admits that he has learned a lot from the entire team and that this has allowed him to make the most of the situation.