Binding up the brokenhearted: Startup nation develops new app to help Israelis struggling with mental health

The Israeli mental health app “Rescue” was providentially launched just before Oct. 7, 2023. Now they are looking to upgrade from providing mental first aid for Israelis to making the tool available to people all around the world.

Israelis have not stopped innovating even in wartime. There have been apps to help people know if there’s enough time to take a shower before the next siren, matchmaking apps to spice up times in the bomb shelter, and then there is “Rescue,” an app developed to help Israelis cope with anxiety and trauma.

Yael Comay is the founder and CEO of the Rescue app, which has helped over 10,000 people to date, including Nova survivors, by leveraging the well-established benefits of proven therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Back in May 2023, Comay had the idea to create an app to provide others with the help she needed when she endured a day-long panic attack. “There are many hotlines, amazing hotlines,” she told ALL ISRAEL NEWS. “They are trying to help, and they can stay with you for half an hour, but they're usually very busy, unfortunately, and you cannot call your therapist outside office hours,” she added. “They can’t be available 24/7.” 

“I decided to build a tool, an app that will help people in a very simple and easy way, to give people emotional first aid,” she explained. “I want to help other people. I'm going to make something out of my bad experience – I'm going to take the lemons and make lemonade.”

Astonishingly, Comay had already begun building her team of tech experts and mental health professionals to formulate the app right before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel. They were just in time.

“While the world watched from afar, we lived through the sirens, the sudden chaos, and a sense of uncertainty that shook our nation to its core,” said Comay. “We saw the people around us and the systems we rely on collapsing under the weight of trauma. We knew we had to act.”

“This is our mission, this is the most important thing that we can do,” Comay added. “And the team completely agreed. We started working like crazy.“ 

The team, which all gave their time and expertise for free as volunteers, worked around the clock and under great duress; some called up as reservists, while others juggled a disrupted life in and out of bomb shelters. “Despite the immense pressure and the difficulties of the war, we refused to stop,” she said. “We knew this was our moment to serve Am Yisrael.” 

Quoting from Psalm 147:3, Comay reminds us of God’s heart for the broken: "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." 

The app guides the user through structured logic and adapts to their state in real-time through interactive questions. From the moment the app is opened, the user is invited to interact to establish a basic assessment. It then guides the user step by step to help lower the heart rate and restore control, using a variety of solutions tailored to the user. 

“The interface is simple, accessible and very personalized. Even at the peak of a crisis, when concentration is difficult, the intuitive User Interface helps you find your calm.”

The app is free and it works. After surveying users, over 70% reported significant relief within 5 minutes. It has already received recognition and accolades, including the Cactus Prize awarded by the Ben-Gurion University Entrepreneurship Center and Investment Fund.

Not only does the app itself serve every sector of Israeli society, but the team is a mix of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Druze Israelis. Comay recognizes that different cultural groups deal with stress, anxiety, and mental distress in different ways, and wants to make sure that the app is helpful to everyone. 

“Some people can't use hotlines or even go to therapy,” she said. “Men usually keep their feelings bottled up and they're not comfortable with talking with other people, and in communities like the haredi or Arab communities, it's not normalized to talk about your feelings,” she said, explaining that not everyone is willing to talk to a professional about their struggles. The app is a perfect solution.

The mental health crisis in Israel has completely overwhelmed the available resources, and some don’t even have friends or family to turn to, so when the Rescue team started “guerilla marketing” as Comay call it, posting memes in social media groups about anxiety to point people to the app, thousands of people were soon downloading it.

“We received many messages from people with PTSD, veterans, Nova survivors, and older people who are often very lonely. Also, mothers that have autistic children,” she said. “It helps them.”

One grateful user wrote, “I used the app for the first time yesterday, the options are great. The narrator’s voice is very soothing and gives the feeling he’s standing right next to me. Yesterday I was in a deep anxiety attack but I managed to calm down in a short period of time.” 

“Thank you so much, I didn’t know how much an app could save me!” wrote another.

Comay and her team want to establish Rescue as an officially recognized medical tool that can be administered for free, as a digital prescription, to anyone who needs it through healthcare providers, hospitals, insurance companies, and public institutions like schools and workplaces. However, clinical trials will be necessary before the app can be rolled out globally, which has presented a financial hurdle. Through the Israeli crowdsourcing platform Headstart, they have already raised 77% of the funds necessary to take the app to the next level. Now they hope to see the last 23% come in within the next two weeks.

“We want to do this not just for Israel, but to be the beacon of hope and life for other countries in the future, because we want to help people,” Comay said. “We want to help people with broken hearts.” 

Currently, Rescue is only available in Israel, but to support the app's development and make it available in other countries and languages, you can contribute to their crowdsourcing page.