The Immersive Power of Virtual Reality Therapy | Dr. Kryn McClain of CatapalloVR

We talked to, I think, between 50 to 100 parents, teachers, VCBAs, therapists, and really started to try to understand, what are we doing now? What are we missing? And that came our first four categories where we realized, while there's communication and social skill deficits, kids aren't ready to go to work. So we need some occupational readiness skills. They're struggling with their ready to live skills. So those activities for daily living, or they're also struggling with emotion regulation. So what we found through that pretty extensive qualitative analysis is transition age kids were falling into two or more of those categories. So that's where we started to get to work and really think about, okay, what can I not replicate in a therapy office? That would be difficult. I'm not going to take a kiddo to an ATM to teach them how to use an atm. Right. We can't really replicate those things. So not only did we develop those categories, but then we developed this safe model where it's like, okay, why VR? You know, why would anybody want to use this? So we try to think of, you know, really pushing it to the max, okay, well, what would be maybe risky in the real world, whether that's fear of failure or fear of harmfulness to the therapist or the client.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community, and in your life. Welcome back, everyone, to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Rachel Harrison, and we are back today with a discussion of innovation with Dr. Crin MacLean, who is the founder and CEO of Catapolo VR, which harnesses the power of VR to empower individuals and transform lives. So welcome Kren.

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Rachel.

I am so excited to talk to you more about VR. My kids love to play VR, so this is definitely a cool thing out there in the world. And I'd love to just start by saying a little bit about what is Catapolo VR? What do you do?

Yeah, absolutely. So we provide a virtual reality platform for mental health therapists mostly, but also like autism providers and education, hospitals, museums, a lot of different sectors. But essentially what we're doing is creating a platform to help accelerate mental wellness. So we're trying to be that catalyst and that pretty much just an accelerant to help people get to wellness safer and faster and hopefully producing those better outcomes for them, because we can incorporate all these Realistic environments. We can now incorporate all of our senses into the learning experience. That's really our goal, is to help people feel better faster.

Yeah. And let's talk about that all of the senses piece, because if people haven't ever tried VR headset, I think some people have, maybe others haven't. How would you describe that being different than maybe, like, when we're playing video games or something on a screen?

So it's certainly different experience for everybody. So getting into a space where you are completely blocked out from any irrelevant stimuli really enhances the immersion. You know, even on a zoom call, I can see my teams is blowing up. My discord's blowing up. Everything's blowing up. My dog just walked under the chair. But if I was in VR with you, I wouldn't know any of that's going on. So it's a completely immersive element to hop into.

And it's mostly sight. Correct. Sound and sight, I guess, as far as the senses that you were talking about.

Oh, sure, that's a great point. So, you know, most VR programs not only do sound and sight, but the neat thing is we can now interact. So we're also bringing in that element of actually doing and practicing things.

Okay. Okay, great. This is amazing. So I want to kind of rewind a little bit and get the story about you, because I'm very curious about how all of this came to be. So what are some of the highlights of your journey and what led you here to find this company and start it up?

I'm kind of one of those serial entrepreneurs where I just. I'm a dog with a bone when I see a good idea as well. But my entrepreneurial journey started back in 2017 when my first son was born. You know, had gone on maternity leave, and then went back to work to find my position was eliminated. At that point, I just really wanted to create a space where I wanted to work. So we set out to do that, and out of that first company really came Catapaulo. So what we started to notice as we're working with teenagers transitioning to adulthood, how are we going to get kiddos these skills where they can practice in a safe setting where we don't have a kitchen or a laundromat or things that we can bring to them. So we started to kick around the idea of virtual reality. We started to develop it in that first company, really had some great outcomes. So we're like, wow, we really want to keep doing this. How do we really grow and scale this and get this out There to more people. So from one company came the next where we wanted to give people access to treatment in a way that can hopefully move through the wait list faster, hopefully get people these skills and get them acquired so that they can transition to the real world. Because we don't want you staying in virtual reality forever. We want you to get the skill and then please use them. Almost like therapists, we're always trying to work ourselves out of a job. You know, we want to get these skills out there. And then from there, we really started with neurodiversity and autism, and then we started to see all these other applications for it that were quickly evolved into exposure therapy and cognitive behavior therapy skills and things we were already doing in therapy, but wanted to provide a better resource so therapists can get beyond the worksheet. Now we can provide this tool for therapists to really provide these immersive backgrounds in nature to make an interactive experience where, again, we're incorporating all of our different senses to enhance that learning experience.

Yeah, you covered a lot of ground there. I'm thinking about when I got to test it out before this podcast, so thank you for that. And I know I saw one that was on, like, how to brush your teeth. So speaking to maybe somebody that's working on that skill, which was great. But then you also had things about emotions and handling emotions. And then you also had. I did another one that was more of a mindfulness kind of exercise. So I'm seeing how there are all these different applications. How do you get that data of what to build and what to create and how does that process work?

A lot of it, you know, when we first started out came from my own personal experience. So because I have been a therapist for so many years, specializing in trauma, specializing working with kiddos with autism. A lot of that came naturally in terms of what we saw through the course of treatment. But where we really started was we talked to, I think, between 50 to 100 parents, teachers, VCBAs, therapists, and really started to try to understand, what are we doing now? What are we missing? What are the deficits? And that came our first four categories where we realized, while there's communication and social skill deficits, kids aren't ready to go to work. So we need some occupational readiness skills. They're struggling with their ready to live skills. So those activities for daily livings, or they're also struggling with emotion regulation. So what we found through that pretty extensive qualitative analysis is transition age kids were falling into two or more of those categories. Even if they were, quote unquote, high functioning or low service needs, we were still seeing a deficit in those areas. So that's where we started to get to work and really think about, okay, what can I not replicate in a therapy office? That would be difficult. I'm not going to take a kiddo to an ATM to teach them how to use an atm. Right. We can't really replicate those things. So not only did we develop those categories, but then we developed this safe model where it's like, okay, why VR? You know, why would anybody want to use this? So we try to think of, you know, really pushing it to the max. Okay, well, what would be maybe risky in the real world, whether that's fear of failure or fear of harmfulness to the therapist or the client. So that's where we started to develop once we started to acquire customers. Now we ask our customers, hey, what are we missing? What more would you like to see? What are the parents? What are the clients telling you? So we get a lot of information from our current customers as well, who are wonderful to work with and they only want to see the product develop further. So when we can we try to get to work and get that feedback incorporated.

Right. That makes a lot of sense. And so tell me, how do people typically incorporate this? Is this something people are doing in addition to therapy before therapy starts? Like, how do you typically integrate that?

Yeah, so it is during therapy. So it's not meant to replace therapists. So I do want to be very clear. We're not trying to replace anybody or anything. AI our way out of this mental health crisis. It's not happening. Like, you still need that personal touch. So we really work on the theory that we're helping to standardize some treatment and also provide a resource, but we need that therapist or that educator to combine that with that human experience. So essentially what happens is, you know, you log in like you did, and then you would launch a module with a client in session, you stream it. I'm sure, as you saw, you get a score at the end and you track their progress over time. So the goal is really to give professionals that additional resource to use in conjunction with their treatment.

Okay. And so therapists would actually have a VR headset to utilize in session then with the client.

Yeah. So they certainly can. It is web based, so if they didn't want to use a headset, they could put it on a computer or a tablet. We always recommend the headset for all the reasons I described earlier, because it is so much more immersive than. But if someone was unwilling or unable to wear a headset, they certainly could run it off another device.

Okay. Yeah. And then what about practicing at home? Is that something that clients ever do as well?

Not at this stage of the game. So it's really meant for a therapist tool. So think about like a thera tapper or something that is for a therapist. Because if we were to send clients home to practice EMDR on themselves and do bilateral stimulation, we might not get the results. So this is still something that we want in a professional's hand to make sure that no one's jumping around to a module that maybe they're not ready for yet. Especially when we're thinking about those exposure modules or when we're thinking about transitioning those skills to the real world. Just because you go through our cooking series once doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to cook. You may have to do it for six weeks before that therapist might think that you're ready to go ahead and actually sit down and try to cook Mac and cheese.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Are you seeing those skills being transferable then? Like, have you been able to see this work with a client where they do the cooking series multiple times and then they are able to take some of those skills and transfer them to the real world?

Yeah. So not only are we seeing that, we're also seeing them generalize the skill, which we didn't anticipate. So that was fantastic. So not only were they able to cook what the module was telling them to, they were able to take that skill and transfer it to a different item. So, for example, we teach Mac and cheese, but we've had clients be able to now cook ramen noodles. So concept, following directions, boiling water, stove safety, just a different item. So we are seeing some great results with that.

I love it. And then you mentioned mdr, which is certainly my bailiwick. So I'm curious, have you integrated this with EMDR as well?

So there's no bilateral stimulation, but what you can do is use those emotion regulation modules. So a lot of all the pre work that we would do with clients before we do the bilateral simulation is in there. So, you know, progressive muscle relaxation and different meditations and things of that nature, grounding, radical acceptance. All those things that, you know, we work on before we do the actual thera tapper session. We don't have the ability to. I'm not sure what the copyright rules or the IP is for EMDR specifically for bilateral stimulation. So we've kind of steered away from touching on any IP or anything like that. But you can certainly use it for the skills leading up to that session to help your person become emotionally regulated.

Right. That makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious, what is your vision for this? Like, if you could just give this to every therapist or integrate this into people's work, like, what would your ideal scenario be? What would that look like?

Yeah, I'd really like to expand who's using it as well. So, of course, you know, we want to get this out to therapists and autism providers, educators. But I do think there's some applicability in hospital settings as well for acute and chronic pain, certainly in that arena as well. And then also in different areas, like entertainment, you know, where kiddos might be going to museums or theme parks feeling overstimulated, and then having that quiet space to come and recenter and regroup the senses in a way that's incorporating technology into those spaces as well. So I would really like to see it kind of grow and expand and get into other areas in addition to the therapy.

Oh, that's cool. I know some schools have, like, a sensory room where kids can take that sensory break. So this could be a form of that doing maybe a mindfulness module to calm down while you're in your sensory break.

Yep, exactly.

Okay, I like that. So tell me about the actual starting of this, kind of from that entrepreneurial lens, like, you had the idea, it sounds like. But what was the story like? How did that actually get started?

We started with building three modules first. So we're like, let's just build these. Let's see if anybody's even interested in this. Maybe the kids will hate it. They didn't then.

Was this you, or did you have someone that you've partnered with for the technical piece? I'm only asking because most of us therapists are not highly technical people.

Sure, sure. So, yeah, we have another BCBA at my first company, whose boyfriend at the time, now husband, you know, was like, hey, I could do the technical piece.

Okay.

I have since learned it in the past two years, though. So now I can do some simple block coding. You know, I'm not gonna say, like, I can code because it's not. It's not like the typing. It's certainly a plug and play sort of thing. So we got it started, and the kids absolutely loved it. And they're like, well, when are the next modules coming out? This is incredibly expensive to develop. So unless we can get someone to. Which we did through Ben Franklin Technology Partners up Here in Pennsylvania to get us off the ground. So we pitched the idea to them. They loved it. They were able to fund us, our first investment so that we were able to build out the product over the past year. So a year ago we only had three working modules, so now we have over 160. So we've really spent the past year developing the product and getting it out there.

I'll say. Yeah, yeah.

A lot of sleepless nights.

So I was gonna ask the toll of that. What has that journey been like for you personally? Is this all you do is work on this all the time?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, yeah, it takes a lot of sacrifice. It takes time away. So, you know, when the kiddos go down, I'm on the computer writing more scripts. So I write all the clinical material, of course. Then I have some programmers that go ahead and translate it into what you see here in the VR setting. But, you know, I do a lot of the voice acting when I'm not sick and I do a lot of different things. So it's been a really neat creative journey too, to take what I've learned in years of experience with therapy and what's worked with clients over the years, and just really translating a lot of the skills that, you know, whether I developed myself through trial and error, like we all do, to simple scripts that we've used. So it's been a really hard journey, but it's been worth it to get it out there.

Yeah. And so are there a lot of different therapists using this at this point? How are you sort of getting that word out and how do people come to you and start to integrate this in their work?

We go to a lot of the trade shows, for lack of a better term, but essentially the counseling expos and the autism ones in places like that. So we're trying to get a foothold of getting out there by seeing people, meeting people. We tried some, you know, different cold emailing strategies that just didn't work. It really is a face to face experience to see us and to see what we can offer and know, like, hey, we just built this really great resource. We're here for you, and if it's a fit, that's great. If not, no problem. So we're getting the word out by, of course, calling connections that I already have and warm leads and places like that. We just closed Penn State Health, who's going to be coming on board and integrating it into their hospital system. We're starting to get some pretty decent traction. We do have Plenty of therapists. We have everyone from solo practitioners to Penn State. Health, of course, is the biggest provider that we have at this time.

Fantastic. And so sounds like it's pretty small team still. You're doing a lot with a small team.

Yes.

Do you still provide therapy or have you pretty much just been working on this project?

Oh, I've stopped therapy in, I think, end of 2021. Even my other business, it became too big to also wear the therapist hat and run the company. So the other company is quite large where it's good and bad because it's got a lot of great systems in place where we've got wonderful people running it. So I split my time between both.

Yeah. Do you find that it was a learning curve to go from those clinical skills to sort of more than running a business skills?

Oh, yeah, very much so. The nice thing about being a therapist and an entrepreneur is we have a lot of the soft skills, so we know how to navigate a lot of these challenging things that come up in business. It's just remembering, oh, wait, I do have these skills. I just need to transfer them to a different area.

Yes. But some of the numbers skills and system skills maybe aren't so natural sometimes for therapists. I think it takes a certain individual. I love that you called yourself a serial entrepreneur. So that leads me to the question of what's next for you.

Oh, I don't know. That's not on the vision board yet. We're just gonna stay right here right now.

Okay. Okay.

You know, we incorporated this company in the beginning, 2023, so it's still pretty new.

It's very new.

So planning to just sit in this for a while and not chase any other dragons that come along my way and stay really, really laser focused on these two companies and growing them to their fullest potential.

That's fantastic. That's amazing. I love it. What do you think in terms of the mental health space? I mean, we've talked about there is a mental health crisis, there's a need for more services, Accessibility is an issue. I'm just curious, tapping into from your different companies, like, what do you think are some of the major themes or barriers or concerns out there that we need to address for mental health treatment for entrepreneurs in mental health right now?

Yeah. And that's certainly something that keeps me up at night. I do think there is a massive crisis in our young people with the pandemic and coming out of that and trying to transition into adulthood where their formative years were very much disrupted. So I Think that is leading to an increase of suicide and just a slew of oh my goodness, how do I adult sort of issues that I was seeing. You know, I think the election causes a lot of anxiety too. I was still practicing for the last one. It was during the pandemic during the election and that's all we talked about all day. And I think also being sure if we are therapists out there taking care of ourselves because that can be incredibly draining. So I see a lot of that. But again, I'm not practicing right now, so I can only kind of reiterate what I hear from supervisions and things like that. But I think the transition age is a big, big area of need right now.

I agree. And just even from the business side of things, it's a tough business to be in if you take insurance because there are so many limitations there. And I guess that leads me to a question here. Is a session built any differently utilizing VR versus Not?

Oh sure, that's a great question. We always just say just use your normal CPT codes. You know, our customers have been reimbursed for using this. Of course, if you need to get approval from, you know, if you're using Medicaid or Medicare, I would certainly reach out to an MCO to make sure that this would be acceptable. So going back to your systems thing, I'm meticulous at systems. That's probably my biggest strength. So I wrote this massive 400 page document that details every single module, every single intervention in it, how it's used, what the script is. I would dare any insurance company to question it. Like it is so robust, it's insane, but it has everything a therapist would need to show. Hey, this is evidence based and this is why it was applicable for my client. Of course they would have to insert that individualized material. Why was this applicable for your client? But I'm going to provide you all the material of what's going on inside that virtual component so that you can say, oh yeah, that mindfulness, it doesn't just say mindfulness, it'll bullet point it and then give you like a three to five sentence description of that intervention. And there's maybe five to six, maybe even more per module that it specifies.

Okay, I love that. I love your meticulousness. That is a great gift.

Well, I think about if I was a therapist wanting to implement this for either myself or a team. I'm going to want it as seamless as possible. So that's where my head is, is like putting myself in my customer's shoes. And how can I make this as user friendly, as easy to and as justified as possible?

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I am really excited for the journey that you're on and to see where you go next. What is something that you would like to leave people with on this podcast? Maybe it's something that keeps you going. Maybe it's an inspiration. Could be about the entrepreneur journey. It could be about the mental health. What's something pressing for you that you think is important to pass along?

Oh, I would definitely say find a village of peers. And I don't mean other therapists. I mean other business owners that can help you because it becomes very lonely once you reach this level because you can no longer turn to your therapist colleagues and disclose information. So find people that will have your back and help you get through just the challenges. They can be very stressful.

I love that. We all need a village.

Yeah.

Well, Crin, if people want to find out more about you, you can look in the show notes. Anyone listening? There's great information about Crin and all her programs and a way to contact her. And I just want to thank you for being here today. So thanks for taking the time. Thanks for trying something new and going out there and creating this beautiful thing. Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

You bet.