Molehill Mountain

Helping autistic people understand and self-manage their anxiety

Molehill Mountain has been developed by Autistica and King’s College London to help autistic people understand and self-manage their anxiety.

We have worked with closely autistic people at every stage in developing Molehill Mountain to ensure that it is easy for autistic people to use and is relevant to their needs.

Molehill Mountain is based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), a well-established and clinically proven technique for managing the symptoms of anxiety. The app has been developed with the full involvement of Professor Emily Simonoff, Dr Ann Ozsivadjian and Dr Rachel Kent from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London.

Most autistic people experience anxiety on a regular basis. Around eight out of ten will have symptoms of anxiety – and of these, three or four will have enough symptoms to be given a diagnosis of anxiety disorder.

Molehill Mountain allows you to track your worries and identify the situations that trigger your anxiety. Your daily check-ins are plotted on a chart which allows you to identify pattern and trends – and you can also display a previous check-in to help you identify recurring triggers for your anxiety.

Over time, you unlock tips that will help you to understand your anxiety and learn ways to manage it. The daily tips have been completely rewritten for this new version of Molehill Mountain. In addition, we have added dozens of extra mini-tips to cover many of the common causes of anxiety and stress in autistic people, such as hypersensitivity to noise, light and touch or difficulties with social situations and communication.

The app also has interactive CBT activities which you can use at any time. These draw upon well-established and clinically proven techniques and are designed to help you to recognise and overcome unhelpful patterns of thinking.

The development of Molehill Mountain has been supported by:

• The Maudsley Charity

• The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists’ Charity

• The Pixel Fund

Autistica

Autistica is the UK’s national autism research charity. They exist to create breakthroughs that enable every autistic person to live a happy, healthy and long life. They do so by:

• Shaping and growing research across the UK

• Funding new and innovative research solutions

• Campaigning for better services and shaping national policy

• Sharing evidence-based tools, resources, and information

https://www.autistica.org.uk/

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London

King’s College London is one of the top 10 UK universities in the world (QS World University Rankings, 2018/19) and among the oldest in England. King’s has more than 31,000 students (including more than 12,800 postgraduates) from some 150 countries worldwide, and some 8,500 staff.

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London is the premier centre for mental health and related neurosciences research in Europe. It produces more highly cited outputs (top 1% citations) on mental health than any other centre (SciVal 2019) and on this metric we have risen from 16th (2014) to 4th (2019) in the world for highly cited neuroscience outputs. World-leading research from the IoPPN has made, and continues to make, an impact on how we understand, prevent and treat mental illness and other conditions that affect the brain.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/