Closing the gap between insight and everyday life.
Joyful is a digital self-regulation companion for prevention and therapy transfer. We're looking for professional exchange with clinics and therapists.
Funded under the EXIST programmeTwo critical phases where support is missing
Rising demand for mental health support meets limited care capacity. A structural gap emerges especially in two phases:
Preventive
Long waiting times favor the chronification of early stress reactions, because low-threshold early interventions are missing.
Post-inpatient
After psychosomatic or psychiatric treatment, tools are missing to secure the transfer of learned strategies into everyday life.
Without continuous support, loss of function and higher relapse rates are at risk. This is exactly where Joyful comes in as a complementary tool — explicitly not as a replacement for medical or psychotherapeutic treatment.
From behavior to functional action
Perceived behavior
Differentiation of emotion
Inference of the need
Targeted, energy-adapted micro-intervention
Emotions have a signal function for underlying needs. If these signals go unrecognized, maladaptive coping patterns such as withdrawal or dysfunctional media use emerge. Joyful makes this connection transparent and translates it into small, everyday-actionable impulses (2–5 minutes). Intensity adapts to the current stress and energy level to avoid overwhelm.
The logic transfers the working principles of cognitive behavioral therapy and schema therapy into an everyday-suitable, digital format.
Differentiation from existing approaches
| Category | Focus | Limitation in transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness apps | Passive content / relaxation | Low transfer into acute stress situations |
| Journaling apps | Descriptive self-observation | No derivation of concrete behavior change |
| AI chatbots | Unstructured interaction | Often lacking behavior-oriented process logic |
| Joyful | Adaptive behavior guidance | Links emotion and action in everyday life |
The difference lies in the closed loop between insight and action — not just capturing, but deliberately translating into behavior.
Supported through
The "exist – from science to business" programme and its projects are funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Union via the European Social Fund Plus (ESF Plus).
Funded by:
based on a resolution of the German Bundestag
Funding period EXIST-Women: 01.05.2026–31.12.2026
We'd welcome your professional perspective
Given your clinical expertise, we're interested in your assessment: where do you see the potential of need-oriented behavior guidance, and where the critical hurdles for integration into the care pathway?
Schedule a callOr write to us directly: odemi@d-ova.com